"Night Train to Lisbon" is a very slow movie...particularly the first half hour or so. I am telling you this not so you'll skip the film but in the hope that you'll cut it some slack and understand what you're in for when you see it.
The story begins in Switzerland. Professor Gregorius (Jeremy Irons) is walking to class when he sees a young woman about to jump off a bridge to her death. He saves her and brings her with him to class...but she soon runs away and the professor chases after her to no avail...all during which his students are sitting at their desks waiting. But instead of returning, the professor reads a bit in a book left behind by the woman...and he instead heads to Lisbon!!
At this point, viewers will no doubt be very confused...I sure know I was. After all, without telling anyone anything he just hops on a train...leaving his old life behind. Eventually you realize that even though he cannot find the young woman, the book so impacted on him that he felt an overwhelming compulsion to go to Lisbon to look up the man who wrote the book.
Once there, you realize that the writer of the book is dead...despite his sister telling the professor he is alive! The rest of the story consists of the man searching for folks around Lisbon who knew the author and his radical book for its time. It seems that Portugal went through a dictatorship similar to Spain's under Franco...and the film pieces together the resistance movement...small as it is. Some of these ex-radicals were happy to talk about the dead author and how they knew him...some were very reticent to have the past dug up once again.
The film is very slow. The pacing is slow, the evocative music slow and the acting generally quite somber. But I kept watching because slow as it is, it also piqued my interest and MIGHT do the same for you. I think that older viewers might enjoy it a bit more because there are some existential elements...the sorts of things you think about more as you age. I also appreciate how the film talks about a time and place you almost never hear about here in America, as the Spanish civil war is widely known but few know about the government in Portugal and its repression. Regardless, I cannot recall another film like it.
The story begins in Switzerland. Professor Gregorius (Jeremy Irons) is walking to class when he sees a young woman about to jump off a bridge to her death. He saves her and brings her with him to class...but she soon runs away and the professor chases after her to no avail...all during which his students are sitting at their desks waiting. But instead of returning, the professor reads a bit in a book left behind by the woman...and he instead heads to Lisbon!!
At this point, viewers will no doubt be very confused...I sure know I was. After all, without telling anyone anything he just hops on a train...leaving his old life behind. Eventually you realize that even though he cannot find the young woman, the book so impacted on him that he felt an overwhelming compulsion to go to Lisbon to look up the man who wrote the book.
Once there, you realize that the writer of the book is dead...despite his sister telling the professor he is alive! The rest of the story consists of the man searching for folks around Lisbon who knew the author and his radical book for its time. It seems that Portugal went through a dictatorship similar to Spain's under Franco...and the film pieces together the resistance movement...small as it is. Some of these ex-radicals were happy to talk about the dead author and how they knew him...some were very reticent to have the past dug up once again.
The film is very slow. The pacing is slow, the evocative music slow and the acting generally quite somber. But I kept watching because slow as it is, it also piqued my interest and MIGHT do the same for you. I think that older viewers might enjoy it a bit more because there are some existential elements...the sorts of things you think about more as you age. I also appreciate how the film talks about a time and place you almost never hear about here in America, as the Spanish civil war is widely known but few know about the government in Portugal and its repression. Regardless, I cannot recall another film like it.