It doesn't take long into Train Dreams to realize that you've found your way into something that isn't what it seems. You're thinking maybe a "western"?--after all, the cinematography moves lazily through settings that are respected, even loved by whoever is holding the camera. But Train Dreams is not a "western," if by the term we mean something mean and snarly about cowboys and/or Indians.
It's not just local color, a regional piece, either, although it stops and stays with a mountain community in the mountain-range Idaho or Montana maybe. Train Dreams isn't political, as such--it doesn't try to wrack up points for rugged individualism or some bygone patriotic spirit. Trump wouldn't like it--it's not MAGA, but then it's not anti-MAGA either. It doesn't fuss with politics.
Train Dreams is one man's story. He happens to depend upon the construction of the western railroad to gain a living, to gain a life, although his heart is quite blessedly hundreds of miles away with a loving wife and baby.
Tragedy strikes, as it was almost bound to. It's a story, after all, and it has a conflict--nothing less than death itself; and when death happens the movie is all about anguish and sadness and an endless world of grief.
But there's no woman-in-waiting, no substitute for a woman he loved and the child the two of them brought into the world. There's only loneliness and the struggle this wilderness man puts up to do little more than hope for some magical return that never happens.
Train Dreams is about him, but it's also about us, not some cartoon version of us but us, inside and out. It doesn't move like movies, so don't expect it to. It's only secondarily about a man who suffers; it's primarily about what it means to be human. It's about grief and hope and life itself, and all of that doesn't come nicely packaged for Christmas. It can be hard to watch, but it's also mesmerizing because we want to know about him and we want to know about us.
It's a beautiful film and, right now at least, its unlike anything else you'll see on the screen in the family room.
It's beautiful, and you can watch it sometime soon on Netflix. Just look for Train Dreams. Right now, there's nothing else like it. It's just beautiful.
2 comments:
"Train dreams" is indeed magical, much like "a vehicle entering a fog bank"... you slowly watch a life fade into nothingness. The main character is much like the Biblical Job. You watch a man who has a contentment, while frustration exists around him, but he is happy with a life that any viewer can identify with. Then the change, the tragedy, the emptiness, finally abandonment. The man does make a connection with another human, the woman in the fire-lookout, but that potential relief is not satisfactory... leaves a sense of emptiness again. However, here is where the character becomes "un-Job like". There is no realization of an almighty who cares for us, just emptiness as the story ends. Therein lies the frustration a view may have that believes there is a God, a Savior, a Spirit to enable us. Yet, is the film worth watching... yes. Beautifully made, reality true to the history of our country; stark, but illuminating to anyone interested to know where we have come from as a country struggling to succeed, and in someway we do frustratingly so if you indeed have a grounding in Faith...just the opposite of the film makers, and the the main character who is described in a review as: "Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century."(Rotten Tomatoes)
Thanks for aiding my limited summary. We most certainly agree on the film's strengths.
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