The cinematography in Train Dreams is spectacular; every aesthetic detail is meticulously crafted. It’s clear that the film’s director (Clint Bentley) took special care with the details, for I believe that every shot and sequence intertwines to tell and convey a story worthy even of the ancient Greeks—not because of the epic it evokes, but because it recounts the journey of a man who helped build the world as we know it today.
Train Dreams is a film about a man who dedicates himself to felling giant trees in the deepest parts of the forest in order to build the railroad tracks that will make the world smaller; just as this man’s own small world is shrinking due to the misfortunes that befall him—perhaps as nature’s revenge for all the destruction these men inflict upon it; nature reclaims what is rightfully hers.
Due to the nature of his work, this man must spend weeks away from his wife and young daughter, as there is a boom in railroad construction in the 20th century, yet very few men dare to do this work more than once. Many of them ultimately choose never to do that work again.
This man is a man of few words when he’s working; he’s somewhat distant and serene—someone in whom one can sense a certain sensitivity, despite his rugged appearance. He admires the trees and the landscape, limiting his speech to only when necessary. At the same time, this man is creating a new landscape—the landscape of what some dare to call “progress,” a misnamed “progress” that comes at the expense of nature.
It is in this way that we gradually come to understand the story behind this name—a story that, at first glance, seems unremarkable: venturing deep into the forest for weeks on end. Yet the stories unfolding before us tell a different tale. We see how ghosts from those days, deep within a nameless forest, haunt this man’s nights; it seems that all the mistakes made there continue to haunt him.
Those memories, those scenes, those mistakes often blend and become confused with reality; for a moment, we don’t know whether what he’s experiencing is a memory of those days or the present with his family. This, as viewers, keeps us on our toes at all times so we don’t lose our way in the story.
The music, which always seems to match the setting, transports us to a distant dream—a memory that fills us with melancholy, to the point of making us feel as though those landscapes are part of a memory we’ve lived through.
Train Dreams is a film that shows us the duality of life—progress but also destruction, love but also loss, joy but also the pain of what’s gone. This is a powerful film about progress, a story like almost any other, yet one that’s always worth hearing.
Rating: 95/100
