Train Dreams

One of the most delicate depictions of grief and loss I’ve seen in recent memory. A film that touches right at the center of your heart just to shatter it again. Just poignant and beautiful as it is heartbreaking. One of those films that has you bask in its mundane nature and for this one, it works just about to the best degree. Filled with quiet and stagnant moments lingering on him that make you feel every ounce of his grief. Stunning images and imagery that remind you of the past that he cannot escape. Easily the most beautiful looking film of the year. Each still felt like a breath of fresh air and brought its own individual feeling of warmth or heartbreak to it. Its array of colors and beautiful depiction of nature envokes strong emotion and captures in a bottle the sense of life Robert has at that moment. Clinging onto every piece of beauty or hope left in the face of loss and emptiness. As I said with imagery circling back to that, its depiction of trauma, guilt and holding onto that past is brilliant and extremely effective in building a sense of heartbreak. Those flashes of those you can’t get back. The vision of them there but hardly audible or fading with their voice. The film in its long bask of that grief completely sells all the stages of it from that denial, emptiness, holding onto your past and all else in between. Joel Edgerton as well is fantastic in here. He gives a simple but amazing portrayal of grief and loss to a tee with expressions and the lingering feeling of brokenness throughout every desperate action he does. It’s truly filled with such emotion and commitment that immerses you into the character and makes you feel every ounce of empathy for him. Just an overall revelation of a film and one of the best of the year so far. Life is like nature. Every grain of it counts, and when it’s destroyed, everything around it is in the process.