Train Dreams

A beautifully-shot movie that hits all the feels. It’s about loss, connectedness, the power of nature to heal, and how not knowing the truth can lead to us dreaming up things to make sense of life.

‍

A simple and kind man works for a logging company cutting down old-growth forest and building the railroad. Because he doesn’t know who or where his family is, he doesn’t have a sense of belonging and so expects nothing from life. One day during the off-season, he meets a beautiful woman. They fall in love, buy a piece of land, he builds a house on it, and they have a daughter. But the rhythm of his work continues to take him away from his family for months at a time.

‍

Returning from what he and his wife had decided would be his last working season away from home, he finds his neck of the woods on fire. It’s difficult to even reach the hill his home sits on but when he does there is nothing: no home, no wife and no daughter. Reluctant to leave the property in case his loved ones return, he lays down on the ground and cries. For months. It’s heart-breaking. He is surrounded by loss.

‍

His vivid dreams are an attempt to process his grief about the emotionally-traumatizing things that have happened to him.

‍

Eventually, he realizes that when he was turned inward, the world had moved on without him. But he's interested in what's happening and is open to reconnecting on his own terms. The brilliant final scene implies he has gained perspective on life and finally feels connected to the world.

‍

This movie is captivatingly beautiful. It’s full of stunning visual compositions, and leaves us with the reminder that even humanity - we who think we’re so powerful that we can dominate nature - will, eventually return to nature.

‍