To the British, train travel represents expense, frustration and delay,
but Patrice Leconte's 'L'Homme du Train' exploits what locomotion has
come to symbolise for the rest of the world: a doorway to all kinds of
transgressive possibilities, where strangers can meet, the norms of every
day life can be left behind.
When bankrobber Milan (Johnny Hallyday) passes through a 'quiet little
town' for a job, by chance he meets retired poetry teacher Manesquier
(Jean Rochefort), an elderly local who invites him to stay in his empty
mansion. Over the next few days, between these two very different types
of men - the one a laconic man of action always on the move, the other
a garrulous dreamer who has never left his ancestral home - there develops
a strange respect. Each has time to kill before their fateful appointments
on the following Saturday, and they soon find themselves testing out one
another's lives, with Manesquier shooting at bottles, picking fights in
bars and getting a crewcut, while Milan smokes a pipe, dresses in slippers
and reads books on fine art. What they discover in their brief stay together
is that they are in fact fellow travellers, whose lives are ruled by disappointment,
and whose different journeys lead inexorably to the same destination.
A film like this entirely depends on the strength of its leads, and fortunately
both are equal to the task. Rochefort brings a sense of rebellious mischief
to his straight-laced role, conveying precisely the impression of a man
who has always secretly wanted to take the first train out of his established
life. The real surprise, though, is Johnny Hallyday, best known as the
prince of French rock music, who is entirely convincing as a middle-aged
criminal who knows his last train is soon due to leave. Hallyday simply
exudes sombre cool in a way that would be unimaginable for British counterparts
like Cliff Richard, Rod Stewart or Tom Jones.
Despite Hallyday's connections with rock, 'L'Homme du Train' is all about
the blues. Leconte's decision to shoot 'L'Homme du Train' entirely through
blue filters successfully transforms the postcard setting of provincial
France into a far eerier, more elegiac landscape - the perfect stage on
which men can play out different models of manhood while they wait for
the end. Each man comes to envy the other, even though neither is satisfied
with his own lot in life, and both must in the end do (in their different
ways) what a man has to do. Like 'Le Samourai' and 'Sonatine' before it,
'L'Homme du Train' uses the genre of the crime film to explore the existential
crisis of masculinity, and the conclusion it reaches is a similarly bleak
affirmation of the codes of heroism.
Well worth the price of the ticket.
Anton Bitel
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