ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Kirpianuscus not a film about war but a great exploration of a community force. not a film about Shoah but one of wise trips in the heart of beauty of an special universe. traditions and stories, precise- delicate characters and the big idea, a travel, a challenge, meditation about the origin and about the best solution. a film who reminds the spirit of Central Europe in inspired manner. it is not easy to define it. it is not Life is beautiful by Benigni. it is not a kind of parable. only a film about life. out of definitions or frames. a film in Mihaileanu's spirit about small and fundamental pieces of existence. nothing real surprising. nothing only seductive. only a support for reflection about the ingenuity and human force of survive.

The_Film_Cricket There is a very fine line that you walk when you are trying to make a comedy about a subject as difficult as the holocaust. Roberto Benigni walked that line with "Life is Beautiful" and never stepped wrong. He knew how to have the trickiest balance between humor and the darkest horror man has ever known.One can imagine how Benigni could have gone wrong. But for an example there is "Train of Life", a shameful exercise in filmmaking whose premise is intriguing, whose script is embarrassing and whose ending is a kick in the face.Here is the intriguing premise: In 1941 the people of a small Jewish community become aware that Hitler is killing Jews in Europe. Fearing that they could be deported, they decide to fake their own deportation by stealing a train, making Nazi uniforms and heading for Pakistan, thereby deceiving the Nazi and saving their lives.The embarrassing script gives us a cast of cartoonish characters who spend 90% of the film squabbling. There is no tension in the scenes where the train in stopped by the Nazis because the Nazis in this film are so dimwitted that they would fall for anything! Now for the ending: The ending (which I won't give away) I suppose is supposed to be poignant or funny or touching but found it to be shameful. With so many denying that the holocaust ever happened, we don't need a film this trite. The movie takes this subject and grinds it down to a rather unfunny sitcom.

savaovi This movie is a comedy, no doubt about it: is has comic stereotypes. It's romanced. I laughed. But this film also has epic dimensions, even if they are imaginary. Over the millenia, we are the witnesses of a new Exodus. God leads His people out of harm's way once again. Moses is now a young lunatic, but in his madness he is wiser than all others. The fate of the Jews links at one point with that of the Gypsies. It had to: both are known in history for their thirst for freedom, both had their Exodus(from Egypt to Canaan; from India to the far corners of Europe), both died heavily in the Nazi concentration camps. For all of them who died in the death-camps, this movie is a prison break: it is their share of freedom post-mortem given. They deserved to escape and to reach the Promised Land, but history allows this only in our imagination: they died in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler and in many other. Everyone has the right to try to reach a Promised Land, or a Moby Dick to hunt, or a Holy Grail to find: because they were denied such rights in reality, this imaginary Exodus brings justice even if it's late. This is the main idea of the film: justice for the innocents.

Swangirl There's quite a bit going on in "Train of Life" but it's worth following. The premise is that a shtetl (Jewish community) fears it will be deported to a World War II concentration camp. The village fool, Shlomo, comes up with the idea to purchase a locomotive, train some of the villagers to talk/act/dress like Nazis and head for Palestine in hopes they can fool the real Nazis. Okay, the premise is far fetched. That's a given. But for this film, it works. The close-knit village buys into the plan and sets to work creating the ruse. Shlomo rises about his "village idiot" persona and finds new worth. The fake Nazi commander, Mordechai, begins to take his role a little too literally. There's a subplot about some of the young men converting to Communism. And a small band of resistance workers who try to blow up the train. But the star of this film is not one person, it is the village. They've banded together to survive, which isn't lost amid the humor. There's true fear and hope. Some may feel the villagers are made fun of and lampooned, but there's a healthy respect for the Jewish customs and family closeness in this film. Watch the scene where the villagers prepare for the Sabbath during their journey and you'll see what I mean. Too many films to count have focused on the reality of the Holocaust. There's no deny that it was a horrific event that should never be forgotten. This film does not desecrate or abandon that truth. It simply adds a new dimension worth exploring.