The pathos of it all. Train Dreams the cinematic adaptation by director Clint Bentley (Sing Sing, Jockey) starring Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones had it's International Premiere in the Special Presentations of the 2025 Toronto International Film festival. Train Dreams is adapted from the novella of the same name by writer/poet Denis Johnson.
Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) is a logger as well as railroad worker at the turn of the 20th century. He meets Gladys (Felicity Jones). Life is idyllic. More apt home life is idyllic. Robert and Gladys set up a small log cabin off of a lazy river. Soon they have a daughter. As the narration by Will Paxton states, "this was the happiest (Robert) ever was). By the nature of Robert's professions he has to leave for places far away for long periods of time. He laments that his daughter will not who is.
Once Robert is sawing logs, laying rail ties the pathos of the world is unleashed. A Chinese railroad worker is picked up by other workers and carried to a railroad bridge crossing a gorge many miles below. Robert is screaming, "What has he done!? "What has he done?!" There is no answers forthcoming, only a senseless murder.
Another logging season sees Robert sawing a large log with a very talkative Frank (Paul Schneider) a man enters the logging camp and asks the whereabouts of Frank. He than guns him down with two bullets and explains to the loggers that Frank killed his brother in New Mexico. Violence in America arrives without warning, without reason and with swift irreversible consequences.
Arn Peeples (William H. Macy) is a man with a limited and specialized job in the logging camps. He is the man who operates the dynamite. At one point around a fireside conversation he laments the fact that they are cutting down 500 year old trees. Everything is connected and there will be hell to pay.
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The randomness of it all Robert struggles with as he is trying to find his place in the world and what it all means. The cinematography by Adolpho Veloso) is absolutely exquisite and captures the beauty, the absurdity, the tragedy and the wonder of it all.
Robert returning from camp arrives as a forest fire has enveloped where the Grainier cabin was. He digs through the ash for answers and none are forthcoming. Trains Dreams is hauntingly reflective. As I watch a piece of cinematic art I place myself with the work and connect it to my life experiences and the world that I am currently breathing in. The fact that Train Dreams premiered on my birthday is not lost on me a time of usual self-reflection. The parallels of the random violence, racism and environmental destruction. there is currently an oil fracking operation on the ranch I am living on in South Texas. What is my place in the world as "immigration" use brutal state sanctioned violence on the people of America. I hope some of the answers arrive before my 80th birthday. We, the audience can at least take solace that Robert Grainier soars above the earth and finds peace.
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