‘Trains’ Documentary Is A Dark Yet Captivating Ride Through History

‘Trains’ Documentary Is A Dark Yet Captivating Ride Through History

By Alex McPherson

Brilliantly charting the relationship between locomotive innovation and humanity’s darkest instincts, Polish director Maciej J. Drygas’s “Trains” weaves together hypnotically-edited archival footage that speaks, urgently and incisively, to our current moment.

Drygas’s film, a project 10 years in the making that compresses footage from 46 archives from around the world (without narration or voiceover), examines the multifaceted role of the titular machines in Europe during the first half of the 20th Century. 

We begin with a rosy quote from forever-optimist Franz Kafka, and are launched into a sequence showing locomotives being assembled in a factory: huge, hulking constructions ominously framed like they’re about to come to life on their own and enact some “Terminator”-esque vengeance. 

Drygas then takes us outside to train yards and stations packed with travelers, putting us in the passenger seat as we ride along with them. After showing some soldiers and generals lounging at a rail cafe, the film transitions into the start of World War I, where the machines begin to take on a different life altogether. 

Railcars previously filled with ordinary people become vessels for weapons and soldiers traveling to and from battlefields. Initially joyful camaraderie morphs into pain and anguish on trips back home, as soldiers return maimed, disfigured, and mentally shattered from war. 

We’re then shown a variety of services available onboard for passengers post World War I — elaborate meals, fashion shows, film screenings featuring Charlie Chaplin — before shifting gears into the rise of Adolf Hitler and the horrific machinery of World War II.

History continues to repeat itself even as technology “advances,” with Drygas zeroing in on the repetitive, seemingly inevitable ways we corrupt it for inhumane yet, also, very human, means.

Drygas’s film is full of imagery both beautiful and horrific, woven together with an astonishing soundscape and a sense of moving forward while being trapped in place, at the mercy of impulses seemingly beyond societal control. Despite Drygas’s bleak views on humanity, though, “Trains” is a completely fascinating watch.

The film lulls one into a rapt daze through its rhythmic, cyclical structure before shocking and sobering with editing that turns its subjects into symbols of humanity in general, with trains as the engine powering them.

It’s less a history lesson than a eulogy for “progress,” speaking volumes through the power of its footage alone. That’s not to say that “Trains” is quiet in the “silent film” sense. Drygas, editor Rafal Listopad, sound designer Saulius Urbanavićius, and composer Pawel Szymanski give voice to the trains themselves — clanking and grinding and droning groans (added via impressive foley work) mixing with a score that maintains a pervasive ambient dread, at times conjuring a feeling of wading through molasses as we zoom along winding tracks through bustling cities and ravaged battlegrounds. 

In one outstanding sequence early on, we observe soldiers doing drills with each of their movements synced with hisses of steam and turns of pistons, like they’re almost one and the same. “Trains” is chock-full of these juxtapositions, equally as incisive when mixing together moments of comfort and luxury with horror.

The footage itself — sourced from educational programs, private collections, and historical films — is remarkable, especially in how Drygas and Listopad select certain faces to highlight: nameless souls who, by the final minutes, carry the weight and trauma of what the wars have wrought, as “Trains” becomes further abstracted.

The film also doesn’t shy away from the grim reality of the Holocaust — train cars full of victims are filmed unflinchingly; at one point the screen visibly shakes with sadness and rage.

So, no, “Trains” doesn’t inspire much faith in the human race to harness technology for “good.” But neither does it fully condemn us. The branching, crisscrossing paths shown in its final shots show potential futures we can head down — particularly trenchant in this age of AI. Will we regress once again, or forge new paths forward?

As both a narrative and audiovisual experience, “Trains” is an essential watch, especially on the big screen.

“Trains” is a 2024 documentary by Polish director Maciej Drygas. It has a runtime. It will be shown nightly at 7:30 p.m. on July 24, 25 and 26 at the Webster University Film Series in Winifred Moore Auditorium (Webster Hall, 470 E. Lockwood Ave, Webster Groves, MO 63119. It is being co-presented by the Big Bend Railroad Club. Winner of Best Film and Best Editing at the 2024 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. For more information visit: https://www.webster.edu/film-series/index.php) Alex’s Grade: A+.

‘Treasure’ Never Connects In The Way It Sets Out to Achieve

‘Treasure’ Never Connects In The Way It Sets Out to Achieve

By Lynn Venhaus
Alternating light humor with traumatic memories, “Treasure” never really comes together as an effective homeland revisit by a Holocaust survivor and his well-meaning daughter.

An uncomfortable odd couple road trip feels leaden and disjointed, which is disappointing given the two gifted performers and an acclaimed team behind this misfire.

Adapted from the 1999 semi-autobiographical novel, “Too Many Men” by Lily Brett, “Treasure” stars Lena Dunham as a deeply unhappy divorced New York journalist who has taken her widowed father to his homeland.

As Ruth Rothwax, Dunham thinks a look back into family history will help her connect to her father, Edek, a wonderfully genial Stephen Fry. For reasons clear to everyone but his daughter, Edek is a reluctant guide, and indifferent to seeing historical sights and places that remind him of his past family life.

There is a great pain there that is barely delved into — honestly. I mean, how does one get past that? (And there have been countless movies addressing those topics with far greater depth).

This attempt to add humorous situations feels forced. The pair clearly exasperate each other. It’s 1991 and Edek’s wife has been dead for about a year. He still considers his daughter’s ex-husband a friend and can’t understand why they are no longer married.

Not wanting to take a train, he hires a taxi driver, Stefan, to be their chauffeur. He’s played with a droll sense of humor by the terrific Polish actor Zbigniew Zamachowki, a veteran of the “Three Colors” films – Red, White and Blue.

As the pair bicker, their differences are stark – dad is an extrovert and daughter is an introvert. He loves to have a good time and engage people in conversation; she’d rather be reading.

Traveling through Poland provides a rich sense of history, most of it unpleasant. Ruins are everywhere, recalling a time of Nazi occupation and the fall of the Iron Curtain in a country that hasn’t recovered nor has reconciled with its past. The production design by Katarzyna Sobanska and Marcel Slawinski effectively portrays the complexities. They worked on the stunningly atmospheric Polish films “Ida” (Oscar winner for Best International Feature) and “Cold War.”

Director Julia von Heinz’s heart is in the right place, but the script she has co-written with her husband and frequent collaborator John Quester never really fleshes out the relationships in an engaging way.

That’s not to say there aren’t moments of devastating poignancy, especially when Edek returns to his family’s home, a childhood memory before they were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The family currently living there is defensive and downright hostile, lying that they don’t have anything left of Edek’s family, but he discovers their possessions tucked away in places.

The most stunning – and horrific – footage is Edek’s return to the death camp, now a tourist site. Of course, it conjures up the trauma and the ghosts of what happened there. The wide shots of rows and rows of barracks remains a powerful testament to men’s inhumanity to man.

That’s tough for anyone, let alone the character revisiting the scars, and having the scabs ripped off.

The most puzzling aspect of this storytelling is to bring up tiny details about Ruth’s neuroses but only provide snippets without much context – her marriage issues, her eating disorder, self-tattooing numbers. We don’t ever get a sense of Edek’s wife and Ruth’s mother, either.

Dunham and Fry appear to genuinely connect, but something about this template doesn’t elevate the relationship beyond the tropes. Dunham, who hasn’t done much acting since ending her popular “Girls” series on HBO, and Fry, a beloved British multi-hyphenate, do what they can with the underwritten roles.

Trying to understand the Holocaust’s effect on her family and the focus on heritage is a noble gesture, but not sure that experience is enough to sustain this as a film. It sputters when it tries to be sentimental.

“Treasure” is a 2024 comedy-drama directed by Julia von Heinz and starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry. It is rated R for language and run time is 1 hour, 51 minutes. It opened in select theatres June 14. Lynn’s Grade: C-.