Madame Tutli-Putli boards the Night Train, weighed down with all her earthly possessions and the ghosts of her past. She travels alone, facing both the kindness and menace of strangers. As day descends into dark, she finds herself caught up in a desperate metaphysical adventure.
Director, Writer
Chris Lavis
Director, Writer
Maciek Szczerbowski
April 6, 2024
7
The eponymous lady, weighed down by a mountain of luggage and pestered by a moth is awaiting a train. She boards to find two of the passengers engaging in what I can only describe as the most surreal game of chess - the moves randomly decided by the train's movements over the tracks and the points! Her other fellow passengers are best viewed as an eclectic mix and as she looks around she envisages just what one of them might have done ordinarily, before he behaves quite provocatively towards her. The train stops, all is quiet in this increasingly fantastic world in which she lives. The character (I thought she looked a bit like Isabella Rossellini) dresses twinset and pearls, like something from the 1920. The technology could be from now or even futuristic and gradually her nervousness in traveling transfers to us watching. The standard of character clay animation is impressive and the attention to detail - especially the faces, is at times quite expressive and sinister. Where is she going and who or what is with her? What's with the green mist? What's with the moth? "Horror Express" look out...!