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TRAIN OF LIFE Send This Review to a Friend
I had no difficulty with the Holocaust humor in "Life is Beautiful" because the film was a fable with a deep feeling for the human spirit. Besides, Roberto Benigni used his humor in the tradition of Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator." But I don't care for "Train of Life," which wields its comedy as an anti-Holocaust weapon. The joke here is that the Jewish inhabitants of a village under a Nazi threat board a train that they disguise as a Nazi deportation train. The scheme is to take the train to the Russian border under this ruse and thereby escape to Palestine.
The problem starts at the outset, when the hapless Schlomo, played by Lionel Abelanski, brings a warning of the impending catastrophe. The Jews in the shtetl are made to look like a bunch of fools and portrayed with the most condescending sort of caricatures far removed from the self-kidding rooted in the classic tradition of Jewish humor. I suppose that writer director Radu Mihaileanu thought he was spoofing in the spirit of writer Sholom Aleichem, and perhaps some viewers will take it that way and think I'm being too severe. However, for me this kind excessively broad portrayal undercuts the emotional impact that we are eventually supposed to feel.
This isn't to say that "Train of Life" is without some good ideas and funny moments. I liked the evolvement of the villager who speaks German better than anyone else and is therefore made the chief Nazi; before long he is enjoying acting authoritarian. There's a moment when on the Sabbath the escapees in their Nazi uniforms are seen praying en mass in the countryside. The plot which gets more and more absurd involves partisans who don't know what to make of this strange train and its passengers.
There you have it. Your reaction will depend on how much you think is really funny, how much you feel is insulting or preposterous and whether you believe the comic idea works as a humanistic fable. A Paramount Classics release.
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