QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

This is not your conventional documentary, but instead an impasto of human interactions. It concerns a montage of archival footage focused on the locomotions coming in and out of the station. In crystalline black and white, Trains follows an onslaught of people interacting with their environment. It offers a look at little moments and gestures in a world divided by technology and social interactions, mostly during the 20th century.

At times, Trains feels like an installation that is commonly found at a museum. It creates a world typified by sound and structure, commerce and camaraderie, family and feelings. The narration is structured on the geography and timeframe in question, presenting a collage that works on form as much as it does on heart. It’s easy to discern a level of adoration for the emergence of automobiles and transportation, as wide-eyed passersby stare on in this rapidly changing world. History unfolds before the screens.

Drygas opts not to use a modern voice, which makes for honest, if slightly dry, viewing. The viewer never gets a sense into the direction where trains evolved, for better or worse. There are no links to this juncture in history, and little to tie the audience’s reality to the one shown on the screen. It is up to the participant to enter into this timeframe with a willing heart. The open-minded will be rewarded with moments of historical fragility and introspection.

This might be the closest thing to a time machine outside of a science fiction novel. At times, it is possible to embody the aroma of industry and ingenuity. There is a visceral roar that stems as much from the chug of a train speeding along as it is from Drygas rapid fire editing. Indeed, Trains is a cerebral work, allowing audiences to journey with the participants walking beside the tracks, as well as the passengers boarding the carriages. An interpretative audience member might see that is the point of the work: everyone from cinema-goer to traveller is on a journey in their life. Some viewers may struggle to join those idiosyncratic dots. Trains has merit, compiling a selection of disparate images that makes an impressive whole, but the lack of directorial guidance and contemporary reflection is a detriment to the realisation of the work.

Despite its runtime of just 80 minutes, Trains occasionally slips into monotony because the setpieces, switches, cross fades and general backdrop are very similar. Most notably, it’s the human beings that draws the camera in. Smiles curl on the faces, as people beckon and gesture to one another amidst the steam rising from the tracks. Clearly this is their first experience facing a visual mechanism, which might explain their amusement and tittering. There are moments of tremendous beauty during the film, especially that of elderly women carrying bags to the sound of a symphonic line undulating beneath the soundmix.

Maciej J. Drygas’ feature bears a conceptual and structural resemblance to pistol-laden folly From My Cold Dead Hands (Javier Horcajada, 2024). The two films centre a hook around images that deal with one aspect of life. Of the two works, Trains is the more successful piece because the treatise is more universal and relatable, although the lack of variety in camera angle, edit or soundscapes is admittedly monotonous at points. Drygas’ work is seated in one singular timezone which makes it a portal into a bygone era of long ago.

Trains just premiered in the brand new Doc@PÖFF section of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.