Train of Life

Train of Life (Train de vie) is a 1998 tragicomedy directed by Radu Mihaileanu, an international co-production between France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel and Romania. Set in 1941, it follows an eastern European Jewish village (shtetl) that learns from the local fool, Shlomo, that the Nazis are coming and that neighboring communities have already been wiped out. Led by their rabbi, the villagers agree to Shlomo's unusual escape plan: they will stage their own deportation train, with some of them disguised as Nazi officers, others playing deported Jews, and a villager serving as the engineer. This imaginary "train of life" becomes their only hope of survival. Written by Mihaileanu and Moni Ovadia, the film stars Lionel Abelanski, Rufus and Clément Harari, treating the Holocaust in an allegorical, almost comic manner. The film runs 103 minutes.