Trans-Europ-Express

This film not only plays a game with genres, seriousness, and frivolity, but also with itself. Describing the film within the film does not even come close to exhausting it: yes, the basic axis of cinematic dynamics is formed by the "fictional" story = Trintignant and the drug trade, narrated by a group of filmmakers on a train = as if portrayed "reality," in which the film within the film is supposed to take place (the storyline with Trintignant). But there is still a third level, which makes something non-autonomous primarily from the initial, seemingly "real" level (because in conventional artistic creation, it is presented as a reproduction of reality), because it is derived, unreal, because it is also imagined. This is the level of countless metafictional and alienating effects that not only undermine the foundational layer of "reality" (and which most films, determined to use such methods, end with) but necessarily also the plane of the "fictional" film within the film. Due to this alienating level, there is no fixed place from which a whole story could be credibly logically narrated and be based on a rational sequence of time and character behavior. Because of this fact, both Trintignant and the group of filmmakers are captives of the film author's will, or rather film fantasy as such. (06/01/2015)