25 out of 25 people found the following review helpful:

A beautiful film in which nothing much happens

davidjbates from , 8th August, 2009

If you like action, excitement, a narrative story that takes you from A to B.... don't bother. This wonderful film doesn't have a standard story / plot but is a beautifully and closely observed window into the lives of a train driver and his daughter. A quiet and spacious film in which little is spoken... but so much about the characters is shown through their interactions, expressions and the details of their lives. I saw this at the cinema with a friend. We went in without any particular expectations, both found it a gentle and moving film and left the cinema feeling that we'd really hit the jackpot. If you like intelligent, emotionally literate cinema that doesn't bash you over the head to make a point - start here.

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18 out of 18 people found the following review helpful:

SUBTITLES DID NOT WORK....

Minny from , 22nd October, 2009

Unfortunately , so as my undertstanding of French is very limited I was not able to really et the most from this film. It looked well shot and the music and cinematography were good and I love French accent's but I am sure it would have been much more meaningful if I could understand it!!!

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6 out of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Subtitles Don't Work 2

A Customer from Leicester, 25th October, 2009

Like Minny above, we found the subtitles on this disc didn't work. Very disappointing, for two reasons. Firstly, it is a clearly a known problem and there are still discs in circulation that can't be viewed properly. Secondly, with the current postal dispute going on, I've missed out on a rental. I expect a rental credit to my account to be added automatically but I doubt it will.

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5 out of 5 people found the following review helpful:

subtitles...

goodlife77 from , 11th November, 2009

...appeared not to work, but i found if i turned subtitles *off* from dvd menu, then they did work. I had the same problem with another DVD from the same distributer (3 monkeys), so i guess it's problem with the way they authored the DVD.

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Slow train running

jimweibo from , 1st March, 2010

An odd one, this. It's a story about Caribbean immigrants living in the Paris suburbs, in one of those estates of faceless tower blocks that you see from the Eurostar or on the way in from the airport. Those places have a fearsome reputation, but everyone in this film has a job and a nice, middle class approach to life. The chief protagonists are Lionel, a train driver, and his daughter Jo, a university student . Jo appears to be of mixed race, but we don't find out much about her mother until the very end of the film, when the action rather abruptly switches to Lubeck in Germany. We see them at work and at home. One of Lionel's colleagues is forced to retire, clearly against his will. Jo attracts the attention of a fellow student, but maintains a desultory relationship with a guy who lives down the hallway. Lionel does a little flirting, and at the very end downs the 35 shots of rum in the title to mark a special occasion....and that's about it. It's slow to get going -- after the first five minutes you'll think the title should have been 35 shots of trains -- and the pace never does pick up very much. But it's an engaging way to pass 90 minutes, because you don't often see films about Paris with no sign of the Eiffel Tower, or for that matter with next to no sign of any white people. I'm not really sure what the point of it was, but I quite enjoyed it anyway. One of the earlier reviewers said the subtitles didn't work. We found that too, but when we went to the menu and set the subtitles to 'off' they worked just fine! Go figure.

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Touching

hardpressedmother from , 25th February, 2010

Slow and dreamy and with minimum words this is the intimate story of a small family made up of a father and his young daughter. They live in a clean and orderly apartment in the city and the story tells what happens when they reach the point of moving on from this state of orderliness and happiness. There is nothing more than that, relationships, unrequited love, the past are all covered with expert acting from the leads.(Josephine's new love is less convincing). The camera zooms into their expressions lovingly and takes us through the story very slowly. The father daughter is very convincing and their love is very touching. An ordinary story of everyday folk but beautifully filmed and quite moving.

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Overrated

nickc909 from UK, 12th February, 2010

I rented this after reading many excellent reviews. Unfortunately this turned out to be from the dull and pretentious side of French cinema rather than the interesting and inspiring side. I could not relate to any of the characters and ended up not caring or liking any of them. Overrated and boring.

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The subtitles do work on this enjoyable film!!

Chegs81 from , 10th February, 2010

You just have to use your brain a bit and select subtitles 'on' at the menu stage. Granted when it says 'off' the 'on' bit is more highlighted but just use a bit of comon sense. Excellent film. I really enjoyed it. Very understated and unique.

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