Daniel Takes a Train

I like this film for a few reasons. Firstly, it is set in the traumatic time of the 1956 Hungarian uprising when a popular 'counter revolution' against the Stalinist regime was violently supressed by the Russian army. If you ever go to Budapest you can still see the bullet holes in the walls. It's the story of people leaving the city as hundreds of thousands tried to do and heading for a small border town to then be illegally smuggled out of Hungary. These people know they will never be able to return and are in fear for their lives. Hence the mood on the train is less than jolly but I like it when they all stand and start to sing the national anthem when the stroppy guard starts hassling people for passports.

Hollywood often treats occasions like this as an opportunity to tell some over-the-top tale of heroism and adventure. In reality of course life's not like that,great events are often a patchwork of small acts of bravery between friends and relatives. In the film there are lots of very sutble acts of kindness and friendship if you look for them. Everyone has their own little story. Gyuri is being hunted by the authorities. He finds his absentee father to try to get him to come away with him, only to find that he had been a secret policeman who still supported everything Gyuri hated. Daniel is too young to really know what the hell he's doing and just follows his girlfriend in a typical teenage way. His attempts at love making are also typically clumsy and unsuccessful. He ends up going after his friend and missing his chance to escape to the west. Gyuri loses his father, his country, his chance to escape and ends up going back to Budapest to a bleak future - if he avoids being shot for treason. He flings himself out of the train. Of course, he wasn't the only Hungarian to choose suicide in 1956.

Secondly, I like that this film was made by Hungarian film students - none of them were professionals. The camera is hand held before this was common or physically easy to do. I think they do well especially if you remember that the communist regime was still in power when they made it. So at many levels this film is about personal heroism at some level or other.

I saw this flick and I have to agree with Blue Jean over our friend from Britain here. It may be an amateur film, but it's still boring, badly explained, dull to look at, and a general waste of time. Americans like foreign films; we just don't like dull foreign films. I'd rather sit through "My Dinner With Andre" (which is a good movie) a hundred times than see this one again. The students who made this need to go back to school until they learn how to make a movie that has engaging characters, clear explanation, an interesting storyline, and better lighting. And oh, leave the torn pocket alone, kids; nobody cares about that.

Are you looking for adventure? Humor? Romance? Then go rent Diva because you won't find any of that here.

Yes, Daniel is in love with Mariann, who doesn't seem to have any function except to take her clothes off when Daniel tells her to. So you can see why David is disappointed when Mariann and her family move out of the apartment next door. But never fear! Daniel's teenage best friend offers to take Daniel on a train ride to find Mariann.

Thus begins the dullest train ride in cinematic history. The passengers stare at each other, grumble, make lame jokes about emigrating to America, and gaze moodily out the window at the grimy landscape. And the time drags, oh lord. One of the boys has to sew up his coat pocket, and it takes you into next week. The most exciting thing on the whole train is the "exit" sign.

A few eons later, the boys arrive in the city. They find Mariann and her family eating in a grim, tacky nightclub, which looks like Uncle Ed's scratchy Super 8 movie of a poor man's Lawrence Welk show shot in a basement. I kid you not--there's even a xylophone player and a singer with dusty sequins all over her leotard. It's no wonder the main characters escape as soon as possible.

The best friend goes off in search of his father. Daniel and Mariann have a sex scene so awkwardly shot that it would make the most hardened Peeping Tom turn away. Meanwhile, the friend finds out that his father was a Communist who collaborated with the Nazis, or maybe a Nazi who collaborated with the Communists. Whatever it was, it upsets the kid a lot.

The next day, the boys get back on the train. Daniel is happy, at least until his best friend commits suicide by jumping off the train. I can't say I blamed him; considering how excruiatingly dull the first train trip was, that "exit" sign was just too much of a temptation.

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