Train of Life (is Beautiful)

A new foreign film opens today across the country, and to some it might seem oddly familiar. Winner of numerous international film awards, including Italy's prestigious Donotello for Best Foreign Language Film and the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award, Train of Life is yet another foray into the human condition during the events of World War II. Director and writer Radu Mihaileanu presents the humorous story of an Eastern European Jewish shtetl (village) and its fantastic escape from the Nazis on a fake deportation train they build themselves. Never mind that it was historically impossible for such an event to have occurred. There is no ultimate reality principle in cinema, and this French language film acknowledges that life is better portrayed when it is idealized.

There will, of course, be inevitable comparisons to last year's enormously popular Italian comedy about the Holocaust, Life is Beautiful. Both movies provide a positive affirmation of life and humanity through a comic examination of tragic events. But Train of Life, which was actually written before anyone had ever heard of Life is Beautiful, has earned its many international awards and praises on its own merits. It is not, by any means, the same movie. Mihaileanu takes a more collective look at how people react to tragedy, and through this study in optimism, tries to give us a broader and more hopeful impression of humanity. It is no easy task to pull a parable from tragedy using comedy, but Train of Life manages to charm its way to cinematic success.

The film has its own logic: Incidents turn on luck and silly circumstances, and in the back of your mind you suspect they couldn't have really happened. The train escapes several close calls because of a German uniform hastily tailored to a higher rank, or by the outrageous claim that their train is special because it is deporting extra-dangerous communist Jews. These are examples of the whimsical and creative view Train of Life takes on practically every aspect of the shtetl's endeavor.

There is a certain severity beneath the lighthearted attitude the movie adopts--not every scene is a humorous denial of the life or death crisis the shtetl faces. The villager elected to play the head fake Nazi goes through his own psychological crisis, and the whole ordeal seems to sorely test the shtetl's religious faith. Even as the shtetl is fleeing death, it runs straight into its own humanity. The most serious crisis in the movie occurs not when they are dealing with real Nazis or are otherwise close to disaster, but when they explicitly ask if God exists. Internal conflicts between the pseudo-Nazis, the newly converted Communists, and the older religious leaders result in one big mess that none of them can resolve, except perhaps the village fool. Indeed, it is the fool, named Shlomo, who poses the question of the movie: "The question is not whether God exists. The question is whether we exist."

It is Shlomo who frames the entire movie. He is the village fool, but following a long literary and dramatic tradition, this fool is ultimately the wisest of them all. Not only does Shlomo come up with the original fake deportation train idea, but he continually saves the day along the dangerous journey to freedom by coming up with more silly and crazy plans. He is simple, carefree and innocent, and this allows him to be, at times, the only one who is fully aware of what is at stake in their struggle. French actor Lionel Abelanski is blessed with an endearing face and he plays Shlomo in a heartbreakingly sincere manner. He is one of the movie's purest delights and illusions.

Mihaileanu emphasizes that there is no one hero of the film, but we do meet and come to know an eclectic array of individuals: Esther, the vivacious and beautiful young woman in search of a lover; Mordechai, the conflicted fake Nazi; and Yossi, a newly converted Communist revolutionary raising proletarian trouble on the train. Each has his or her own way of carving out a life in the midst of the madness. The whole village manages to keep some semblance of their joy for life. Scenes of sex, dancing and prayer are abundant, as are moments of despair and fear. Half of any story is the presentation, and Mihaileanu presents this story urgently and simply. The rush of music, the excitement of living, and the implicit promise of unspoken and unseen tragedy raise the audience's awareness that this life, while not real, is still something to be treasured.

Train of Life is a fabulous deception, a wonderful fairy tale that tries to tame the cynic in everyone into submission. It might seem sappy, it's certainly not real and it is depressing even as it takes the audience along on its life-giving journey. To even hint at the ending would be unfair, but let's just say it puts a powerful spin on how the rest of the movie is remembered. Memory was never so bittersweet, but fairy tales were never so skillfully told.