Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train

In Brief: My entire familiarity with Patrice Chéreau prior to seeing Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (1998) rested on seeing the video presentation of his famous (or infamous, depending on whom you ask) 1976 staging of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle at Bayreuth. In terms of his talents as a filmmaker this told me nothing, but it proved a good grounding in his approach to the contents of his material. Though completely unrelated in storyline, Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train is definitely a product of the same sensibility that produced his Ring staging. The same mix of the high and low realms of art flows through them both: A seemingly incongruous mix of intellectual art and pop art that somehow feels strangely homogenous. This is a film where music by Gustav Mahler and dubbed-into-French film clips from Jack Sholder’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddie’s Revenge (1985) coexist comfortably, where a connection between Mahler and The Doors can be made with some degree of persuasion. This excerpt was taken from a review by Ken Hanke published on May 19, 2015.