Review: Night Train to Lisbon

Jeremy Irons plays a rather lonely academic professor in Switzerland, teaching languages. One day he saves a despondent young Portuguese woman from jumping off a bridge, but before he knows it, she has run off. However, she has left behind a book that takes the professor’s fancy. Written in Portuguese, it’s an autobiographical tale written by Amadeu do Prado (Jack Huston in flashbacks), and concerns the revolutionary goings on in the country in the 70s. Although not normally the impulsive type, he’s so taken by this book (and presumably the young woman) that he abruptly leaves his post and heads for Lisbon to track down the author. Once there he manages to locate the author’s sister (Charlotte Rampling), a haunted-looking woman extremely reluctant to talk at all. However, a friendly optician (Martina Gedeck) leads him in the direction of her elderly uncle, Tom Courtenay. Now in a nursing home and extremely difficult, he was one of the author’s revolutionary colleagues. Bruno Ganz and Christopher Lee turn up as another former colleague and a priest, respectively. August Diehl plays the younger version of Bruno Ganz’s character in flashbacks, whilst Melanie Laurent and Lena Olin play the younger and older versions of yet another important part of the revolution.

 

I rather enjoyed this 2013 Bille August (“Pelle the Conquerer”, “The House of the Spirits”) film, especially for the terrific all-star cast and rather dour atmosphere. However, I think this will play best for those among you more intimately familiar with 70s Portguese politics. I’m not sure how large an audience that would be, but for me, coming into this one with zero knowledge of such cultural/political matters, I found myself a bit lost, and a tad removed as a result through the flashback scenes. The fact that these flashback scenes involved some of the least interesting and least high-profile actors probably didn’t help either.

 

Jeremy Irons has never been my favourite actor, but he fits the role of a lonely professor like a glove. He’s like a seedier, older Colin Firth in a way. It might seem like a stretch that someone would leave their life and do what Irons’ character does in this, but when you basically have no life, perhaps an impulsive departure from that lack of a life and going off on some mysterious journey is understandable. Irons is spot-on as a man who doesn’t normally strike one as the impulsive type, but for some reason is compelled to act this one time. He is backed up by excellent performances from Christopher Lee, Bruno Ganz, and especially Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay. There isn’t a bad performance in the film, but it’s those two you’re gonna remember here more than anyone, even Irons. Rampling looks positively haunted and pained from her very first scene, it’s a really vivid performance from her. The underrated Tom Courtenay, meanwhile, contributes an interestingly dour, bitter performance. These two characters have clearly seen and endured a lot, but one is more willing to talk about it than the other. Martina Gedeck is absolutely lovely too, as Courtenay’s niece, who takes somewhat of a liking to Irons during the film. The then 91 year-old Lee had clearly lost some height over the years and has a walking stick here that may or may not be a prop. But he looked in better health than in some of his recent films like “The Resident” and “Burke & Hare”. Playing a man of the cloth not for the first time, Lee is like everyone else here; sorrowful, world-weary, etc. Rock-solid work from one of cinematic history’s longest-serving actors. Bruno Ganz plays perhaps the most damaged character in the entire film. This guy is extremely cagey and depressed, and Ganz is more than up to the task. As is August Diehl, who plays the younger and less embittered version of the character. Of all the actors in the flashback scenes, he’s the only one to stand out. Melanie Laurent and Lena Olin look so far removed from one another however, that at least one of the two has to be considered miscast as the two versions of the same character. Since I find Laurent absolutely lovely, I’ll go with Olin (BTW, the character is a spy with a photographic memory. I’ve always found that to be not very helpful. I mean, if the information is in your head, it puts your life in more danger than say, having it written down somewhere. Seems short-sighted to me). Jack Huston is merely OK as Amadeu de Prado, but to be honest, based on the character’s writings read by Irons, he sounded like a pretentious dick to me. So there was a bit of a disconnect for me there.

 

The film’s look and atmosphere are characters unto themselves here, and fascinating. Obviously the locales and architecture here are fantastic, even if the lighting by cinematographer Filip Zumbrunn is at times a tad muted in night scenes. More than anything, though, it’s the somewhat dour, pained, and cagey mood created here that stands out. It’s not just in the performances, it’s in the look and overall feel of the film. This looks like such a nice, peaceful and quaint place that the characters inhabit, but there’s clearly a dark history to it.

 

I somewhat resented screenwriters Greg Latter and Ulrich Herrmann for not giving the uninitiated a helping hand with their adaptation of the Pascal Mercier novel. I don’t expect to be spoon-fed, but my studies in history at school didn’t quite extend to Portugal, I’m afraid, and I don’t think I’ll be alone in that. I’m happy to share some of the blame with my obvious ignorance of such historical matters, however. I found enough to like here to give it a mild recommendation, but I think history buffs and the arthouse crowd are the best audience for this one.

 

Rating: B-