Train d’enfer (1984) - film review

A young Arab is attacked and killed on a high-speed train by some young thugs and a right-wing activist.  A young woman reports the crime to the police but she herself is later killed.   Someone in the police is actively stimulating racial tension and supporting extreme right-wing activities…

With Train d’enfer, Algerian-born director Roger Hanin makes an unashamed, and justified, assault on the complacency of the French authorities in regard to one of the most important issues facing this country at the present time.  Although targeting a French audience, the film should also strike an immediate resonance with viewers in other western countries, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, where racial discrimination remains a major national concern.

Although Hanin perhaps goes a little over the top in presenting the issue (the film features some very improbable scenes), he does manage to get across the point very effectively, that there is a very narrow line between national pride and xenophobia.  That great emblem of French national unity, La Marseillaise, is unfurled and presented in the worst light, reinforcing the impact of the atrocity that has been revealed, and almost ridiculing the notion of nationalism when placed beside the horror which that nationalism can inspire.

This is not a comfortable film to watch.  The murder of the young Arab at the start of the film is very graphic and shocking – intentionally so, in order that those terrible images remain lodged in our minds throughout the film.  Almost daily, we are confronted with new stories of similar assaults, but somehow witnessing this kind of racially motivated attack brings home its true horror.  In the film, the murder is witnessed by dozens of train passengers who simply turn a blind eye and do nothing.  The one person who does try to intervene herself becomes the target for assault.  This is a depressingly honest painting of a sick society.  Fortunately, by presenting the police and racial communities in a predominantly positive light, the film offers some hope for the future.

© James Travers 1999

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?