Once, when this film was just released, he caught my eye, wanted to see it, but then forgot, and then again saw it somewhere on the network and still decided to watch this time. This is a film directed by Dane Bille August, who is known for many good films, based on Pascal Mercier’s novel of the same name, Night Train to Lisbon, 2013. Starring Jeremy Irons, who I like, and the cast in the film is very international, there, for example, are engaged Melanie Laurent, Charlotte Rampling, Bruno Gantz, Martina Gedek and others, the film is shot in English. It all starts in Switzerland. Professor Raymond Gregorius in bad weather rushes to school, where he teaches philosophy, when he suddenly notices on the bridge a girl in a red coat, about to jump down. Having thrown all his things, he runs to her, pulls her off the railing, she kind of came to her senses, helps him pack up, only the umbrella flew away and asks for permission to go with him, as a result, he brings her to school, to class, but after a while she suddenly rises from the chair and leaves, leaving her coat. He tries to catch up with her, but he fails. After examining the pockets of his coat, he finds a small book in Portuguese and a train ticket to Lisbon. After reading a little, he suddenly begins to feel a great interest in the character, and the book is autobiographical, finds a store in which the seller confirms that the girl bought the book in a coat that the professor holds. In the evening, he goes to the station, hoping to find the girl there, she is not, and then under the influence of impulse, he boards the train himself. All the way he reads the book, the further, the more interest and a sense of inner kinship arises with the author. When he arrived in Lisbon, he began his search. Along the way, he manages to meet and communicate with the author’s sister and his former friends, whose youth fell on those years when Salazar ruled in Portugal. We will find out the reason why the girl tried to kill herself, she searched for him in Lisbon. He learns a lot of new and interesting things for himself, what is happening quite obviously can affect his future life. So will he choose to return to Switzerland and continue, or start from scratch and stay in Portugal? We will never know, leaving the hero with his newfound friend optometrist, who made him new glasses, whose uncle turned out to be a friend of the author of the book and Raymond met him several times, who clearly has sympathy for him, in front of the train at the station. I must say, despite the leisurely narrative, the film looks good, of course, the actors are good and the director did not disappoint. I liked the film, although I guess not everyone would like it, some thought it was boring, but not me.
How wonderful it is when one random event can not only shake, but also change your subsequent life. We actually like to watch others, and, especially to my liking, the protagonist doesn’t hide it. We perceive the lives of strangers as a movie, a book that is impossible to break away from.
Quiet, calm Portugal pulls out of the rainy days, and is it worth going back? I hope the heroes of Lisbon are doing well, because in two hours they have time to become acquaintances who want to listen and listen. Sometimes someone else’s life is more interesting than yours.
The train to Lisbon is an extremely slow, measured and very beautiful film. It's nighttime, to the sound of rain.
... masterfully told by the creators: director and screenwriters.
Reading the reviews of users of CinemaSearch for this picture, I was somewhat shocked by the criticism and comments, since, to a greater extent, this film, in my inexperienced amateur view, is assessed strictly and not fully deserved, but still positive.
The trailer advertised on TV did not arouse much unstoppable interest in me, but I decided to definitely watch Night Train to Lisbon, and I was not disappointed.
The reference point is a "fatal book" accidentally discovered by a Swiss professor in the pocket of a red cloak belonging to a young stranger with Portuguese roots and genes. The central person in the picture is Raimund Grigorius, an experienced teacher and professor of ancient languages from Bern. So this man opens an unfamiliar book, and with it a new chapter of his now fascinating and meaningful life.
I think it would be wrong to consider R. Grigorius the only main and main character, so I will make a reservation, and note that he is rather a guide in a brilliantly thought out composition. The picture touches on important moments in the history of the Portuguese dictatorship of the 70s, one way or another, associated with the famous doctor and writer of that time – Amadeu de Prado, who is the author of the book, which is now in the hands of the professor. Two people who have never met in reality, somehow magically, suddenly find themselves connected. Turning to Raymond Grigorius (Jeremy Irons), you involuntarily wonder: what exactly is driving this 57-year-old man? Interest in the unknown and the new or the involvement in the book of Amadeu de Pradu a young brunette who found herself on the bridge in heavy rain in a suicidal state. You will not find the answer even in the final, and therefore the intrigue remains.
In this picture with a detective plot and elements of a thriller, melodramatism barely slips, reminding itself of only hints, and the leadership is sustained by an increasing, confusing and alluring intrigue that keeps the viewer, until the last scene, in a tense state. An undoubted plus in the picture, in addition to an interesting genre structure, are parallel storylines that elusively switch the attention of the observer, and have in their content both political and emotional character.
The picture does not leave understatement, despite the fact that all 110 minutes are excited by the wait. I cannot estimate all 10, because for a complete triumph I lacked frankness, clarity, truth; nevertheless, important moments were delicately veiled, but this is more of a director’s move and genre specificity. To watch or not to watch is only your personal choice based on taste preferences.
Deep dialogue, tense silence, dreamy enjoyment of nature and these cute streets that hide many bloody crimes. Take a look at the sidewalks and bridges, which may have been the site of recent executioners. It is purely European chic to reproach oneself for kinship with outright criminals, to repent for one’s sympathy for them. One way or another, fascist regimes were in many countries, and the crimes they committed were not always the work of the Germans themselves. So our main character is a boring Swiss intellectual, suddenly enlightened and, due to a strange impulse, leaves everything and goes to Lisbon, interested in a completely unknown person. Communicating with his contemporaries, he plunges into the terrible atmosphere of arbitrariness that accompanied the world wars. And the hero’s enjoyment of the picturesque Portuguese beauty is accompanied by numerous retrospections, telling us the story of one life.
With a good tailored tape, a good cast and quite a decent emotional message, the film manages to be unimaginably boring. As in Bill August’s other film, House of Spirits, the whole film does not disappear from the expectation that something important, significant, interesting is about to happen. And it doesn't happen and it doesn't happen. The credits start, and you know that's it. The train left, and you stayed on the platform in perplexity about what missed and than Jeremy Irons and Bruno Gantz starred in such a simple sketch.
5 out of 10
Little things don't matter. They decide everything.
Somehow, considering in a wall calendar a photograph of some mechanism of the Baroque era - not an astrolabe, not a cunning barometer - I was amazed at the amazing harmony of details, realizing that they were all made by hand in the simplest conditions: these gears, tubes, rivets, discs and hoops seemed to mesmerize with their bronze brilliance, precision of shapes, rhyme design - and all this was done by the hands of a master who took it from his head! I just wanted to touch one thing. It was this meaning that its inventor, F. M. Dostoevsky, put into the word “touching”.
The film “Night Train to Lisbon” is really touching. With all my being, with all my fibers, I feel a game of chess with myself until the morning, the flight of an umbrella from bridge to river, a red wet cloak in the gray light of an autumn day, a small interesting book in my hands, published in a circulation of only a hundred copies, a ticket to another world, the inappropriate call of an inappropriate boss at an inappropriate time - I feel every frame, its proportionality, its deepest thoughtfulness, its absolute reality and - almost at the last moment, as in life - the indescribable, simply divine, beauty of everything that enters into this frame.
There is nothing superfluous in this world, everything has meaning and power, everything is cruel and sympathetic - you only need to "accidentally" break glasses and "necessarily" pick up others, "lighter", which, even in the opinion of an outside shopkeeper, you will be "to your face"; you need to doubt and be curious; try to help, knowing that it is impossible to help; believe, disappointed in everything; love - to meanness, to guns - and personally take your love behind the fence; die to live even more;
You need to suddenly take a night train to Lisbon, to Stara Russa, to Mars, and fill your life with meaning, and therefore beauty.
And there's a lot of beauty in this movie. So much that you're even choking a little. The film is not only artistically flawless, the film is full of actions, worldviews, electricity of long spiritual wanderings, poetry of places and times.
Many people will perceive all this subconsciously, but I see everything at once: a huge statue of Christ in the background (the second is in Rio de Janeiro), and a light breeze over the bay, holding a red strand, and a ferry floating from the island (memory), and the distance taken for the conversation of unfamiliar men and women, and a light half-turn of the head of a flirting woman, and a conversation about a person, events and things that are not in the frame – how do you get excited here? This is life!
“No one has done this before you,” said the pianist, with his arms broken, to an archival rat who snorted from a cup so that, splashing in trembling hands, the coffee would not transfuse and the pianist could take the cup.
10 out of 10
P.S. By the way, the name Amadeo means “beloved by God”, and Pradu means “meadow”, “mowing”. “Beloved by God of the Meadows” is the name of the Portuguese physician, philosopher and fighter against God and tyranny, whose fate is dedicated to the film.
The life of the main character of the novel, Raimund Gregorius, a teacher of ancient languages in Bern, proceeded calmly and measuredly, until he once met on the bridge a mysterious stranger who charmed him and just as suddenly disappeared from his life, leaving behind only his cloak and a book written by the Portuguese author Amadeu de Pradu. And the meeting with this woman, and the book, whose thoughts are unusually consonant with the soul of Gregorius, dramatically change his life: suddenly for himself he leaves for Lisbon, trying to understand himself and immerse himself in the attractive world of people unfamiliar to him.
Before us is the adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name Pascal Mercier, masterfully shot by the Danish director - Bille August.
The fear of loneliness defines our whole life.
The film turned out on the one hand vital and philosophical, and on the other lyrical and dramatic, shot at the junction of two times, past and present, parallel intersecting with each other, telling about the fate of people, their life turns against the background of historical events in Portugal.
It is worth noting the very international European cast of this picture, where experienced and venerable actors successfully coexist with the young and talented: the British - Jeremy Irons, Charlotte Rampling and Jack Houston, Germans - Bruno Gantz, Martina Gedek and August Diel, Swedish - Lena Ulin/i> and Franz Loranz/i>
I recommend watching.
Where can a random coincidence of circumstances lead a person? It is clear that anywhere, but this mechanism, no matter how amazing, in my opinion, the events the world around us sometimes throws at each of us, is impossible without one key screw. Without the inner impulses of a person to move towards events, the totality of which at the end of the existence of a single homo sapiens can be called the proud word “life”.
It is about the search of the main character of this very “life” through the lives of others that the film “Night Train to Lisbon” tells. Boring professor of ancient languages Raymond Gregorius, whose boredom fully remains behind the scenes of the narrative and appears in the plot only once from his words, saves a young woman from jumping from a bridge. Perhaps unexpectedly for himself. Disappearing from his field of view as quickly as she appeared there, the girl leaves the professor her cloak, book and ticket to Lisbon. The main character, forgetting about everything in the world, with a confused look goes to the station and, apparently, again, without expecting it from himself, gets on this night train, simultaneously immersed in the contents of the same book.
The first thing that comes to mind after the plot is a feeling of improbability. How could a professor give up teaching and, without warning anyone, travel without belongings across half of Europe? Probably, every person who watches this movie at home, in warmth, comfort and absolute comfort, would note the unimaginable irrationality of the protagonist. “He didn’t even come home to me!” But what about the dream of “leaving everything and going where your eyes are looking?” I am sure she visited each of us in the most acute way at least once in her life, in her most routine moments. So why can't a movie serve as a short-term dream come true for us?
Events that begin to slowly but excitingly develop in Portugal, forced first to assume that we have to deal with the genre of detective, and at some point I began to expect from the film something like a lightened version of the adventures of the notorious Professor Langdon. In fact, everything was not so simple in genre terms.
A series of constant and undisguised visual references to the history of the Portuguese resistance reduced the detective in the picture to a conditional shell, which organically combines romantic and action lines in the events of the past and present. Slowly following each other, they do not load the head of the viewer with excesses and leave behind a pleasant understanding of what is happening.
Of course, the mosaic, which is consistently and piecemeal collects the main character, does not contain surprises. However, the not quite conscious search for himself as the central character, caused by an abundance of raised philosophical fabrications in the course of the development of the plot, can compensate for the straightforwardness of the development of events and even more – make a small but distinct mark in the inner world of the viewer. For each its own and unique. By example, I will say that much of what was said in this story, removing the appearance of wisdom, felt something very warm and close to me.
Extremely attractive movie. It is worth watching for the sake of mood, not, say, the plot.
8 out of 10
If dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a duty.
The film creates an opportunity to contemplate one of the images of the modern world, described in the novels of J.-P. Sartre, G. Hesse and J. Yalom. A lone scholar specializing in the study of ancient languages, meticulous and punctual, playing chess with himself, who is absorbed in the routine of his existence, who has lost the taste of life with great passion and struggles to catch the story of the Portuguese writer Amadeo, a story that will force him to embark on a path of rethinking. This way of rethinking will lead to fundamental reflections on the essence of the political dictatorship, which looked at the expanses of states of different continents (in our case we are talking about the time of the political dictatorship of Salazar in Portugal), and the dictatorship of internal, personal, in which the brain is the main and indisputable constructor.
Drawing the realities of political dictatorship during the time of Salazar, the director with incredible accuracy and force focuses on the realities of terrible periods of human history, when power in full and diversity was violence against people, their destinies and freedoms. You do not know what it is to live and not trust each other, friends or relatives. These are periods of history that both the executioners and their victims try to forget with great force, but the pages of human suffering and responsibility still resurface from time to time to give us a chance to think about how to avoid this in the future. To avoid such stories, when an honest doctor is subjected to popular anathema for saving the life of one of the representatives of the dictatorial regime, when talented pianists in the process of inquiry, forever break their hands (that the cup poured to the top becomes one of the greatest difficulties in life), breaking at the same time and spirit. In this environment, where there is no freedom of political, cultural and physical existence, where friendship, love, hate, fight seems to be a difficult process, people seem to be ants who are incinerated alive with a magnifying glass.
Perhaps a more important topic of the film is the question of the internal dictatorship of man, questions of internal order, the question of the relationship between the concepts of “life” and “existence”.
When we leave the place where we lived, we leave a part of ourselves there. We stay there even though we left him. Sometimes we can only change something in ourselves by going back there. When we return, we return to ourselves, leaving behind the paths we have traveled, but when we return to ourselves, we become lonely. So, the fear of loneliness determines our whole life.
This is one of the key dilemmas of our lives. Is life an internal category? The main festivals take place within us, as do the main dramas, are people born and die within themselves? We constantly need to make choices (values, models of communication) with the realization that time cannot be brought back, and there is a limited existence ahead, which always ends in death. It is thanks to such conditions that time takes the form of fluidity and the past acquires special significance. But we not only go back to the past, but also with great enthusiasm preserve our “life” or our “existence” by transforming the first or second into a cage.
The issue of fluidity is revealed more and more acutely in the qualitative formulation of questions.
What can and should we do with the time that we have been given? An open and shapeless lung like fluff in its freedom and heavy as lead in its obscurity. I have the desire to reflect on every minute of my life, so that later I know the path that I, myself, must go.
And all this comprehension really, according to the views of Freud or Lorentz, depends on a deep awareness and experience due to the fact that "man is finite". We believe that death does not concern us by the young. It is like a thin paper tape envelopes us, only touching our skin. But when does that change? When does this tape start to shrink? In order to eventually suffocate.
No less relevant is the thesis that the only sphere of life is the sphere of intimate relationships. We will go, we will fly, we will have our dreams, our language, common peace, common smells. Obsession with her and his dream, which he wants for himself but not for her, which she is not ready to accept, life on the edge of the universe is a great expectation that she is not ready for. Why didn't he know that? Is it possible to know the essence of another person without being that person? Imagination is our last refuge, but the fields in verse are much greener than they really are. Every person is a set of changes. It is a mistake to think that the decisive moments of our lives that change its direction must be vivid and dramatic. Most often, if our lives change, it changes quietly and imperceptibly. In this silent silence there is a special nobility. This special nobility is that special logic of life, the river that changes the course without explosions and noise. Such a chaotic process of personal development necessarily leads to another conclusion that "the real director of life is a case, a director is cruel, sympathetic and magical", therefore case should be understood as a chance, a choice. The main thing in life is the script of life that you wrote yourself. What you need to achieve and survive in it. You have to learn to overcome the fear of death and not be afraid to achieve what you want, because no one but us will change the plan. An important moment in life is when you realize that what we wanted to achieve is unattainable, so you need to learn to live in a way that you do not want to live, because there is always a choice, but it does not always suit us. We look at different lives and compare, tell ourselves that his world, his life is extraordinary, and ours is nothing, seems insignificant. They cheated and played with their destinies, which in the end destroyed them, but they lived and our lives ...
“I would not want to live in a world without temples, I want their beauty and grandeur as a counterbalance to the dirty grey color of uniforms. I love the divine words of the Bible. I need their deep meaning so as not to become a servant of the meaningless words of dictatorial slogans. But there’s another world I don’t want to live in. A world in which dissent is anathema and many beautiful things are proclaimed sin. A world that justifies tyranny, oppressors and murder. The paradise of eternal immortality is hell. Death and death alone add beauty and terror to every moment; only death makes the time we have been given alive. I would not want to live in a world without temples, I want the beauty of their stained glass windows, their cold peace, their mournful silence, the greatness of their poetry, but just as much I need freedom from all the cruelty of this world.
9 out of 10
"Night Train to Lisbon" attracted me after watching "The Artist's Wife" Billy Augusta, I wanted to see something else from this director. And I didn't make a mistake. Let you not be confused by the gloomy poster and the mysteriously incomprehensible name, the story, though about tragic events, but so light and beautiful that it is great for viewing one of the autumn evenings, when the house is calm and cozy, and the soul asks for nostalgia.
This is, first and foremost, a memory film. A lonely old man, leading an insanely boring and monotonous professorial life, by chance finds himself in a sunny Lisbon. One day, in his rainy Switzerland, he rescues a young Portuguese girl from suicide on a bridge. The girl disappears, leaving him with a mysterious book and a train ticket to Lisbon. Raymond Grigorius, trying to find the girl and hoping to figure out what prompted her to do this, using her ticket, gets on the train and leaves. He goes to meet a new fate and old memories, which he wants to understand. He was intrigued by the book and now he is looking for threads that will lead him to the author - Amadeu di Pradu.
An amazing combination of detective and drama, historical events and developing, against the background of these events, love. A story of true friendship and fiery hearts. The story of a difficult life in the revolution and how in such a cruel time to be yourself, not betraying your ideals. Starting watching, you do not even suspect that you are waiting for such a large-scale and deep story. You are interested in watching the events and waiting for what will lead to the persistent “digging” of Professor Raimund in other people’s lives.
As far as the cast is concerned, he is great. You will recognize almost every actor. For example, the main three characters at a young age, selected very accurately. Melanie Laurent ("Inglourious Basterds, "The Illusion of Deception") - a young Estafania, ardent, beautiful revolutionary, in love, but refusing to follow the call of her heart. Lena Ulin ("Narcosis) - still beautiful, but more wise Estefania, who remembers the events of past days. August Dil ("Salt, Inglourious Basterds) played the best friend of Amadeu de Pradu, ready to do anything for love. And actually Amadeu performed by Jack Houston.
In short, a life-affirming story that not only reveals the secrets of the past, but also clearly shows (by the example of Professor Raimund) that sometimes you need to decide on changes in life and then you will find your happiness.
A boring professor in boring glasses comes across an unusual book. At the call of his heart, he boards the first night train to Lisbon and begins to unwind the tangle of closely intertwined stories and human lives that somehow relate to the work. The main mystery is the story of the author – Amadeu de Pradu.
This picture is a win-win combination of genres such as detective, adventure, melodrama, historical novel – and all this against the backdrop of the charming Lisbon. The plot-mosaic holds the viewer’s attention throughout the narrative, throwing more and more amazing details of the story.
The cast is also well-chosen. There are no obscure Hollywood faces, although there are recognizable ones - let's take the same Christopher Lee and Melanie Laurent. The latter, by the way, once again pleased with her talent, this time reincarnated as a revolutionary Estefania. One of the key scenes was so strongly performed by her that will remain in my selective film memory for a long time.
As a result, we have another high-quality (albeit low-budget) film with an impeccable plot, a feeling of the game and a wonderful atmosphere of the southern European capital. You have to look, you have to look.
8 out of 10
P.S. The only thing that spoiled the atmosphere a bit is that all the dialogues were performed by actors in English with a supposedly Portuguese accent. If you shoot in English, then in literate!
