Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985)

I have noticed that everywhere I look for reviews on this movie I see people confused and, sometimes, offended by the use of Christian symbols and themes used throughout this movie. I watched this movie as a child and remember being the only kid in my family who loved it and found it fascinating, but i was a Christian back then (that being the only thing I knew). As an Atheist, I rewatched this movie a few days ago and was completely overwhelmed by its use of Christian symbolism throughout the film, but I kept watching and noticed that almost as abruptly as that had started, the subject had dropped. Upon sitting alone in my room I thought it over in my head and I noticed something: The Christians on the train went to Christian heaven, while another character on the train went to his own heaven to join with one of his family, and Giovanni had a ticket to the "One True Heaven". I rather like this idea, and it makes me love the film more than I already did. Truly one of the best animated movies of all time, what a masterpiece!Also, the Heaven Giovanni can't see might be his one true heaven, just something to think about. ;)

This review has spoilers, but how can you spoil something that is already rotten? I picked up this awful movie to show to my kids and had to apologize to them afterward. It's partly my fault as I saw Miyazawa and thought Miyazaki, the genius behind Totoro, Castle in the Sky, Kiki, etc. Unlike those movies, 'Night' is completely unenjoyable. From the title and the blurb on the box, I was expecting a fun adventure on a train ride across the galaxy. What I got was a painfully slow story, filled with disjointed surrealism, overtly Christian preachiness, and a depressing ending.The movie starts off introducing Giovanni as a boy who is struggling in school and is picked on by classmates because his father is late coming back from a fishing expedition in the North Sea. He is also shown working hard for little money at a printer's shop so he can help provide for his sick mother. The introduction section is relatively long and uninteresting, but it could have been bearable if the rest of the movie made up for it. At the end of the initial part of the movie, Giovanni tries to go to the town's Centaurus festival but is teased away by a his classmates once again. He runs off to a field, falls asleep and is awakened by a steam train appearing out of nowhere.OK, now we get to the part where the poor picked on kid gets a fun romp around the galaxy on a train, right? Nope. They turn a trip through the galaxy into a series of disjointed surrealist images, loosely based on the constellations. You get to see a fossil dig under their city unearthing 1.2 million year old walnuts (why?) An old man catching heron, which apparently taste like candy, and an observatory of Alberio that looks like the yellow and blue stars of Alberio being used as a lighthouse beacon. None of these scenes are very interesting, but they leave you hoping something coherent will happen.Unfortunately the something that happens that make things a little more coherent is that the movie becomes preachy. Hymns, prayers and stories about how great it is to sacrifice your life. Yech! The box should have had warnings on it for the preachy content.After a stop at the Southern Cross (heaven) the boy's one true friend who's been with him on this journey jumps off the train. The boy then wakes up back in the field where he was asleep and soon finds out his friend died rescuing another of their classmates from drowning.So there you have it, depressing, preachy and dull all rolled into 1 bad movie. Don't bother with it, and don't subject poor innocent children to this stinker.

Gisaburo Sugii sure has had a eclectic career, starting out with children's fare like Jack and The Beanstalk. Here he takes Kenji Miyazawa's children's story and creates a living atmosphere. While highly detailed backgrounds are nothing new for anime, "Night on the Galactic Railroad" combines its finely crafted images with a brilliant use of frame shots, pacing, and audio montage to create a surreal and ethereal viewing experience. If I tell you that this is the same guy who did Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie you wouldn't believe it, right? Well it is the same person. But this is without any doubt his best film. I have never had such an experience with an animated movie before (I particularly dislike most of anime) but this was enlightening. A must see.

This film is up there with all of Miyazaki's works, including "Spirited Away," "Princess Mononoke," and "My Neighbour Totoro."It has a very surreal quality and a deceptive cuteness to it, which may trick you into thinking it trite or superficial. However, like some of the best Anime out there, "cute" can leave you open to some horrifying consequences. Obviously it's not as heavy as "Grave of the Fireflies" or as light hearted and uplifting as "Totoro", but this film lies somewhere in between. I haven't read the book, but I'll bet it's similar in theme and scope to "Le Petit Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.I'm certainly not a Christian, and often tire easily when confronted by blatant Christian imagery in film, literature, and music. However, this film requires a degree of spirituality to get its point across, and the Christian images present, while overpowering at times, represent a nebulous kind of spirituality -- as if it's saying "there is a force out there which helps determine our fates, but I can't define what it is."For example, the film takes place in some alternate European world (most likely Italy) and the characters have Italian names. But they're anthropomorphic cats and don't appear to practice any kind of Christianity (they celebrate moon festivals, and sail lantern boats in the river). However, they later meet up with human children on the train, and listen to Christian hymns on the wireless ("Nearer my God to Thee"). They pass several different layers of Heaven, and Giovani, the main character, has a special ticket that allows him passage to "the one True Heaven".The film, like the train, takes its time to get where it's going, and some powerful messages come across to the viewer. Unlike many Anime and Western films, this one does not end with a happy and neatly tied-up ending, nor does it take pains to explain the things that go on inside the train. It leaves that to the viewer. This is what makes good art films. This is what makes a film worthwhile.