This is a fairly obscure film made by Montand shortly after he finally became comfortable with screen acting via Compartiment tuer a couple of years earlier and for me Montand was the sole reason for seeking it out. To describe it as surreal would be like describing Salvador Dali as grounded in reality and it is one of those entries which, conveniently for the director, everyone will interpret in his or her own way. The central premise is that hoary old chestnut about the communications expert thrown into a strange universe which he finds incomprehensible. Montand is a professor of linguistics who lives with but is not married to a theatre designer played by an Anouk Aimee who seems strangely cold and unattractive in complete contrast to the role she played prior to this in Un Homme et un femme. Although they smile at each other rather a lot the relationship itself appears to have gone off the boil and when pressed he is reluctant to commit to marriage. Having established all of this the Professor takes a train to fulfil a lecture engagement in a neighboring country and having advised his mistress not to accompany him on the grounds that he will have no time to spend with her he is bemused to find her joining him in the train. He nods off, wakes to find her gone. The train stops in the middle of East Jesus. He disembarks along with one older and one younger man. The train moves on leaving them stranded. Eventually they stumble on what at first sight seems a ringer for Oliver Goldsmith's Deserted Village. Somehow they find themselves in a movie theatre where the screen is full of images of free-falling people. For an encore they hit a hotel where no one, least of all the linguistics maven, can understand a word being spoken. And so it goes on. Apparently helmer Delvaux is a Flemish painter and the film abounds in Flemish-type paintings masquerading as frames of film. Mr. Bean it's not. They'll be 'teaching' this one in the varsity circuit for years but don't look for it in Loewe's State.
Review of One Night... a Train
