Ceux qui m’aiment prendront le train (1998)

Ceux qui m’aiment prendront le train is a French romantic film drama first released in 1998, directed by Patrice Chéreau.  The film stars Pascal Greggory, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Charles Berling, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Bruno Todeschini.  It has also been released under the title: Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Before he dies, a celebrated artist, Jean-Baptiste, asks to be buried in the famous cemetery at Limoges (a town reputed for housing more dead than living), in a distant corner of France.  His relatives, he insists, must take the train to attend his funeral.  Sure enough, after his death, Jean-Baptiste’s enormous family pour onto a high speed train bound for Limoges.   Relatives who have not met for ages, who have never got on well in the past, are forced into close confinement, unleashing a torrent of emotions.

A dizzying roller-coaster of a ride, with its enormous cast and stylish, arcing camera movements, this is a striking work from the director of the acclaimed La Reine Margot , yet it is, for all that, not entirely satisfying.

The quality of the acting cannot be faulted, Chéreau getting the best out some of France’s finest at the time he made the film, most notably Charles Berling and Dominique Blanc.  Most entertaining is Vincent Perez’s outrageous performance as a transsexual with a major insecurity problem, although Jean-Louis Trintignant’s melancholic Lucien very nearly steals the show in the second half of the film.

The presence of so many characters makes the film very difficult to follow, and it is the fragmented nature of the film, which tries to pursue so many strands, which ultimately works against it.  Some of the story ideas are not developed fully enough and the film has a tendency to feel excessively arty and superficial at times.  It is also mildly annoying that many of the characters conform to stereotypical patterns of behaviour (particularly the three gay characters), implying a lack of imagination on the part of the writers.

Despite this, if you do not look to closely, the film looks very good, benefiting from some very impressive and moody photography.  Consciously or not, the film mirrors the style of a contemporary abstract painting – a frenzied collage of ideas, full of colour end energy, yet eternally perplexing and probably destined to be truly appreciated by a select minority.

© James Travers 1999

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