director Jerzy Kawalerowicz
screenplay Jerzy Lutowski
director of photography Jan Laskowski
music Andrzej Trzaskowski
with Lucyna Winnicka, Leon Niemczyk, Teresa Szmigielówna, Zbigniew Cybulski
awards
the Georges Méliès Premio Evrotecnica for technical achievements and quality of entertainment; Commendation for Lucyna Winnicka at the International Film Festival in Venice, 1959
Golden Duck (Złota Kaczka), ‘Film’ magazine Readers Award, 1960
INTERVIEW WITH JERZY KAWALEROWICZ FROM TADEUSZ BYSTRAM’S FILM ‘BETWEEN THE TRUTH AND IMAGINATION’, [WYWIAD Z JERZYM KAWALEROWICZEM Z FILMU TADEUSZA BYSTRAMA ‘MIĘDZY PRAWDĄ I WYOBRAŻNIĄ’]
‘Night Train’ is an adaptation of my personal experience. A similar story happened to me when I was travelling from Warsaw to Poznan. I was very tired and wanted to have a good night’s sleep, so I asked the conductor to give me a separate compartment. She did, but at the last moment there appeared that lady… a very interesting one. That is, it turned out later that she was interesting. We started to talk, and our conversation was not quite real – I was pretending something and she was pretending something – we were inventing stories. That’s how we spent the whole night, without ever falling asleep.
JAN REK, JERZY KAWALEROWICZ’S ‘NIGHT TRAIN’ OR SPEAKING WITH ONE’S OWN VOICE [‘POCIĄG’ JERZEGO KAWALEROWICZA, CZYLI MOWIĆ SWOIM GŁOSEM], ’KWARTALNIK FILMOWY’, NO. 57-58, SPRING-SUMMER 2007
‘Night Train’ is not a film about the war, nor even about its repercussions. In terms of genres, it has a form which is ideally amorphous, a kind of a hybrid, as it follows the pattern of a thriller and a melodrama at the same time (…). The film also assumes the form of a reflection – conducted visibly in the spirit of existentialism – about the desire for emotions and the bitter taste of disillusionment (…). The atmosphere of sadness and pensiveness over the instability of relationships and the frequently accompanying feeling of lack of fulfillment – which, painful as it may be, releases at the same time a new hope and helps people, always on a quest, to find themselves on the road – reminds us of the early films by Antonioni.
history periods
