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Australian actor Joel Edgerton calls the feature film Train Dreams, which can be seen on Netflix, almost “a Western epic celebration of one life”. “He exudes such a strange dignity,” says actor Robert Grainier, the stoic, taciturn American lumberjack.
The film, which premiered at the Sundance festival, was based on a 2011 novel by the now deceased writer Denis Johnson. It takes place at the beginning of the 20th century. The hero lives near the town of Bonners Ferry in the state of Idaho. When the mining season begins, he always goes far away for several months to work building bridges or railroads. Then, with the earnings, he returns to his wife, played by Felicity Jones, and young daughter.
Portraying a man struggling to find a balance between work and personal life was not difficult for 51-year-old Joel Edgerton. “I know what it’s like to be in love, I’m in love now. And I’m also struggling with how to combine work and personal life. So Robert is almost like me, only that, unlike me, he has an ax in his hand,” notes the actor known from the films Warrior or The Gift.
He was interested in the film, that the ordinary life of a woodcutter, who, for example, has never seen the sea and who under normal circumstances would not be of interest to anyone, can be portrayed in a script in such a way that people care about him.
The protagonist often works alongside wandering men who have no home or family and travel from one state to another for work. They cut down spruces, cedars, larches, Douglas firs and pines. As they move deeper into the forest, they gradually change the face of the slope.
Trailer from the movie Train DreamsVideo: Netflix
Train Dreams was made as his second feature film by director Clint Bentley. He especially praises the actor Edgerton, who, according to him, can express a lot of emotions even with the slightest movement. “He can make the most out of the minimum, impress you just by looking into the distance or by saying something. He is great and at the same time very modest,” assesses the director.
First reactions from critics are favorable. According to the Washington Post, the film tells a relatively bland story of a man who experiences a tragedy, but otherwise not much happens in his life. The result is nevertheless interesting.
“Dreams of trains offer an opportunity to take a break from a world that hardly gives us a chance to slow down, and to realize how beautiful life is,” believes the reviewer, according to whom Adolphe Velos’s camera sometimes rests long on the tall treetops in the wilds of the American Northwest, allowing the viewer to fully appreciate them. The feeling of timelessness is completed by the dreamy music of Bryce Dessner, known from the band The National.
Foto: Netflix
The hero Robert Grainier played by Joel Edgerton is an orphan. “He never knew the exact year or day of his birth. No one told him how he lost his original parents,” the film introduces him.
“The movie is really beautiful. All those mountains, incredibly tall trees and sunsets are so painfully stunning, as if they weren’t even real,” agrees the New York Times reviewer. According to her, the film describes how we gradually gain experience and fully appreciate the magnificence of our own life, often only at the moment when its end begins to approach.
According to the British newspaper Guardian, the film was apparently inspired in some ways by the cinematographic methods of the acclaimed director Terrence Malick. “Later scenes set in the city show that part of the mystery of every life is how short it is and how it can fit into a fleeting series of memories. Joel Edgerton conveys all of this to the audience with sensitivity and grace,” assessed the Guardian, who awarded the film four out of five stars.
The AP agency wrote that with the progress of the years, interest also grows in the book model, which in English has just over a hundred pages. The novel by Denis Johnson, who lived from 1949 to 2017 and won the prestigious US National Book Award, was first published at the beginning of the millennium in the literary magazine The Paris Review. But she gradually gained fans, in 2012 she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and last year the New York Times included her on the list of the best books of the 21st century.