One Night... A Train (1968)
Director:
André Delvaux
Writer:
Johan Daisne (novel)
Stars:
Yves Montand, Anouk Aimée, Adriana Bogdan
Mathias (Yves Montand) is a Flemish professor who takes a vacation when the university students go on strike. He decides he will visit his mistress Anne (Anouk Aimee) to get away from the social and political upheaval. He finds that Anne has embraced the social causes despite an illness that could lead to her death. In a surrealistic scene, the two argue before Mathias boards a train. He meets Anne there, but the two are unable to communicate and she eventually vanishes. Mathias and two other strangers wander into a foggy rural area where they encounter revelers who dance and speak a strange language. It seems the train has wrecked and his girlfriend is dead, but the dreamlike expressionisms that flash forward and backward play tricks with the time and sequence of events. Soon Mathias and Anne are off to London, but the time period is unclear in this symbolic but unevenly scripted feature.