*Spoilers* Little help? - L'homme du train (2002) Discussion

[–] 21 years ago

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I think they came back to life long enough to imagine what their lives would have been like if they'd switched.

My question, though, (*spoiler*) is...
did the bachelor unwittingly tip off the police when he loudly played bank-robber early in the movie?

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[–] 21 years ago

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[–] everway 21 years ago

Does anyone know the poem that Manesquier recites to Milan when they're doing the target practice in the abandoned building?

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[–] twob_ornot 21 years ago

According to http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/07/24/233309.php#007186, it's from Louis Aragon's "Sur le Pont Neuf," the poem that opens his 1956 Roman inachevé. The other poem (which mentions Les Alyscamps, a long avenue bordered by cypress and poplar trees, lined with numerous Roman marble sarcophagi, and which Van Gogh painted), the last line of which they discuss ("beware of the sweetness of things") is by Paul-Jean Toulet, from his 1920 collection Les Contrerimes.

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[–] bruce-129 21 years ago

I really liked this movie, but for me the ending ruined it.
Anything but the over the top ending that it was, they could
not seem to understand the movie they were making.

The whole way through the movie, it was marvelously under-
stated and subtle, and then to have a shoot out like a Holly-
wood action movie, and the corny ending just snapped me out
of the whole mood of the movie.

I am not really sure what happened at the end, the one person's
opinion that they can back for a minute, or maybe their live's
were rushing before them, whatever, it did not work for me, partly
because like you, it was unclear.

Anyway, where I would normally rush out to get the DVD whenever
it might be released, with the hoaky ending, I am not sure about
it now.

-BK

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[–] Billygoat 20 years ago

The ending wasn't perfect, but it wasn't so bad either. It wasn't exactly a big Hollywood shootout. I agree with another poster, that their eyes opening as they die was simply them imagining that they could trade lives.

By the way, I thought that it was clear that the robbers were betrayed by one of their own...the guy who organized the whole thing in the first place. The others come to the door of the bank and see him in a car driving away, and they yell after him. Or am I mistaken about that?

Overall, a fairly interesting story. Well acted and well photographed.

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[–] s22214 20 years ago

The main problem with the theory of each man imagining that they could trade lives is the fact that the schoolteacher imagined the shootout at the bank, which is exactly what did happen. The chance that he imagines himself as the robber and imagines the precise events in his mind as those that actually occurred is next to nothing. Impossible. Also, we must realize the significance of both men dying at the exact same moment. This, in combination with the fact that the teacher imagined what actually happened at the bank, would more likely be a way of showing that the two were in reality the same person with the same death.

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[–] veryape 20 years ago

Some people need to be instructed on how to watch film...

The bank robber's old friends are the one's who tip off the police...they obviously set him up to either get lighter sentences or for some sort of bribe.

The ending can be translated in a few different ways.

One, like someone mentioned in this thread, they stayed alive long enough to picture what it would be like to switch lives. The other is that they passed on and in the "other" life they switched to be who they really wanted.

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[–] jonr-3 20 years ago

I suspect it's the theory about the "other" life that wins. My main reason for leaning toward that interpretation is that the tagline refers to the men being "about to trade lives." But it's a shame that a film that until the last three or four minutes sustains an unusually high level of excellence is, to my mind, spoiled by an ambiguous and unsatisfactory ending.

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[–] Lessa1085 20 years ago

They didn't "switch" lives at the end. They are dead, but in those last few moments, they open their eyes and look at each other. The professor goes on to a better/higher life (heaven? whatever one believes/hopes in). You can see this especially when the train rides out of pitch black darkness into the light, and the prof. smiles. He gives the keys to the bank robber as in for him to keep living his life on the materialistic earth, in a certain reincarnistic fashion.

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[–] novelle 20 years ago

My interpretation is that neither of them died. The teacher recovers from heart surgery and the bank robber recovers from his bullet wounds. The last scene where the teacher gives the bank robber the keys looks like it takes place outside the gate of a prison after Milan serves time for his attempted robbery. The part where we thought they died is actually a metaphor for the death of their old lives and when they open their eyes they have been given a chance for a new opportunity to change.

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[–] Bloodanna 19 years ago

That doesn't really make sense though because:
1. They aren't aged at all.
2. The robber was shoot in the heart (instant death)
and
3. The teacher was dead too long (they, the doctors, had time to clean the *whole* room), he would of been brain-dead even if he did live.

I think the end part where they traded lives was set in the afterlife. The one place where they can finally be happy.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so.

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[–] gaiderdraco 19 years ago

Man on the Train is about two strangers who live one life and do not appreciate it for what it is worth.
The bank robber doesn't speak much and believes that "things aren't what they used to be"; and the same goes for women. The retired teacher is always dreaming about action, like in the scene where he imitates Wyatt Earp in front of the mirror while wearing the bank robber's leather jacket.

They meet and are interesting to one another because they literally are what each other wants to be. The teacher wants action but it too old and the robber wants peace and quite, and a life from days long gone. Neither one will get what they want but because they see the opposite in front of themselves, everyday, they are happy and comfortable with the present. The accidental meeting is the best thing that has happened to them.
Therefore, if the two people were to be only one person the story wouldn't work because one personality can not want to be like another personality; it would simply happen on its own.

The ending signifies the best time of their lives: the robber is lying on the pavement and bleeding to death because he was shot multiple times by the French Spec Ops (do to a stab in the back) and the teacher is lying on his "death bed" because his heart (or whatever artery was shown on screen) was discarded as "useless".
They know that each wanted the other's life but that to feel the anticipation is better than the real thing, and as they pass on to another plain of existence they switch roles because that is their moment of Zen. That is the only time can really do whatever they want. It is shows as hem switching bodies, not embodying one another, and when they are satisfied they cease to exist.

The film is not metaphoric, it is philosophical.
It's a beautiful film and I will watch it again, soon.

D.

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[–] dandelion254 18 years ago

i know its been a while since anyone posted a response but i watched the film last night for the first time and thought i'd come and see what others thought to the ending...i myself can not completely comprehend what happened but i think that is the director's aim, as most hollywood films end in a state of equilibrium and a resolved narrative so that the audience can go away satisfied. Yet in many european films directors go against this like in l'homme du train to make the audience think for themselves and draw there own conclusions. But i did find an interesting review on the BBC website i know that most of it has been said before in some way or another but i thought this was a clear interpretation of the reading of the end.....

"As the pair approach their dates with destiny, writer Claude Klotz has them admiring, and even envying, each other's lifestyle. The OAP imagines himself a man of action, while the hood dreams of a quiet life beside the fire.

The subtle osmosis continues as Leconte, having assigned both characters a distinctive musical and visual signature, delicately elides them.

Not much more happens than that, but those who value artistry over incident will find much to savour en route to the film's transcendental climax.

Above all, though, this is an actor's picture, with Hallyday's craggy menace chiming perfectly with Rochefort's rueful charm."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/02/21/the_man_on_the_train_2003_review.shtml

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[–] TeaStain 18 years ago

I agree about the merging of the characters in death. I just saw the film on BBC4 and I thought the ending was an optimistic way of handling death. For Rochefort death is his adventure - a train into the unknown. For Hallyday it is the security and peace he has been denied. I think that each character has romanticized the lifestyle of the other as unattainable and as they confront death see their escape from their existence.
I don't really buy the schizophrenic line. There is no evidence against it but it seems an interpretation too far - an unnecessary embellishment of an artfully simple story.
Damn fine film.

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[–] edrisi 18 years ago

In fact the film - which was partially sponsored by FIFA is a metaphor for the contrasting styles extant in modern football.

This was revealed by the director in an interview given to the World Cup preview magazine " Le back de la net".

Rochefort represents all that is to be found in the "catenaccio" defensive style of football- absorbing, sweeping and occasionally essaying an un-productive counter-attack as symbolised by his inability to hit a tin-can.

Hallyday is the all out attack option -shoot shoot and shoot again- as symbolised by the three pistols- but with no plan B-maybe he can remember the opening line of a poem - but no more.

In end both are doomed and go on their separate journeys- in search of the elusive "Cruyffian" goal of total football shown briefly by the flash of a Dutch impressionist master to a robber too drunk to absorb what he is seeing before him.

And so it goes.

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[–] dannydiplo 18 years ago

Manesquier (Rochefort) imagines the whole thing when he sees the "stranger on the train". His fear of the operation and his regrets for how he has lived his life manifest themselves into a lucid dream, fuelled by anisthetic. Only the first seconds of the film are "real".

Or it was about football. I'm not sure.

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[–] M_ak 16 years ago

"Manesquier (Rochefort) imagines the whole thing when he sees the "stranger on the train". His fear of the operation and his regrets for how he has lived his life manifest themselves into a lucid dream, fuelled by anisthetic. Only the first seconds of the film are "real"."

Oh good god, way over-analyzed.

Most recently viewed:
Man on the Train - 8.0/10.0
Seven Samurai - 7.5/10.0
Eastern Promises - 6.0/10.0

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[–] peter81965 18 years ago

what a load of cock

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[–] edrisi 18 years ago

Thats another and more obviously Freudian analysis but the football metaphor was confirmed by the Director in an interview given at the Mongolian Film Festival in Ulan Bator.We travelled back together and he is an absolutely charming and fascinating travelling companion.

And so it goes.

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[–] peter81965 18 years ago

Ah, yes. the golden days of the eighties and early nineties... half man half biscuit, standing room only, when saturday comes, fanzines, 'oh, i'm a big fan of St Pauli' in the union bar...but time to move on, now surely?

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[–] spovat 18 years ago

My interpretation:

They were the same person. The movie portrays one persons life as if it were two strangers. This can be developed in many ways, but I won't attempt for now.

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[–] 18 years ago

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