Train scenes in movies are better than car chases 100 times out of 100. By setting an action sequence in or on a moving train, the stakes are amped up by orders of magnitude. One of my favorite action films of the last decade, David Leitch’s “Bullet Train” makes incredible use of the train as its restrictive dimensional home. It’s so easy to instantly know where anything is in a train, because it can only be forward or backward. Big fights happen with a linearity that isn’t available in larger open spaces, making for a concise and easy to follow visual masterpiece. Even small and quiet scenes are amplified when on trains, because the background is constantly moving.
In almost every country but the U.S. trains are a mainstay of getting from point to point. Maybe that’s why they end up in films so often. Write (and direct) what you know, right? Think about every great movie you’ve ever seen, and remember that it has a train in it. “Silver Streak”, “Train to Busan”, “Snowpiercer”, “Murder on the Orient Express”, “Mission Impossible”, “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three”; all great films.
This essay outlines some of history’s great train movies, including Wes Anderson’s “The Darjeeling Limited,” and Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away” where the train is less a vehicle of transportation and more a metaphor for moving forward into the next phase of your life. Trains work way better as metaphors than cars or planes do. You can’t have a character in a life-altering theme-setting car ride, it just doesn’t work.
I love Patrick (H) Willems’ work, and his video essays are an instant-watch for me. This one features a very Jason Torchinsky-esque devolution into the physiognomy of the characters in the “Thomas The Tank Engine” universe, which I seriously enjoyed. Go watch it.
