Train of Life

Far superior to either Life Is Beautiful or Jakob the Liar, the French-language production has a silliness and a buffoonish humor reminiscent of Amarcord and Fellini's Roma, yet somehow it feels neither excessive nor offensive. It's no surprise to learn that the picture won the Donatello—the Italian Oscar—for Best Foreign Language film. [...] The underlying sense of vanity that marred Life Is Beautiful is thankfully absent here, as is the saccharine hokiness of Jakob the Liar. Instead, Mihaileanu presents a world in which optimism and fantasy coexist with grim reality. It isn't an easy balance to achieve.

— Jean Oppenheimer: Ha-Ha-Holocaust (Dallas Observer)[12]

This is an offbeat and earnest piece of work, which focuses itself on telling its ripping yarn in a comic and poignant manner rather than drenching it in sentimentality. Mihaileanu tells the fable with a fantastical, vaguely surreal feel, that makes clever use of some standard Jewish tunes and draws neat performances from Abelanski's tragi-comic Shlomo, and De La Fontaine as the village crumpet who creates the movie's most endearing running gag by endlessly falling for the wrong man. Yet for all its plus points, the film isn't quite strong enough to distinguish itself from the recent rash of similarly-themed fare, and as such its appeal is unlikely to reach far beyond the arthouse. It's a likeable oddity, certainly, but in treading such well-heeled turf it also becomes an unremarkable one.

— Empire Online: Train Of Life[19]

Mihaileanu goes to great pains to emphasize the tragedy of the circumstances, although he does so in a somewhat belated and unconventional manner. [...] An important question for viewers of Train of Life is whether a tremendous ending can redeem an otherwise mediocre motion picture. [...] For that reason, Train of Life is one of the few films that works better on subsequent viewings than on the initial one. [...] Ultimately, however, the ending is what will determine how each individual reacts to Train of Life. Someone who walks out midway through the film will have a different perspective than those who stay to the start of the closing credits, since much of what is provocative and interesting about the movie is introduced during the brief epilogue. While this is not the ideal way to structure a motion picture [...], there's no doubt that Train of Life's resolution leaves a forceful impression.

— James Berardinelli: Train of Life (Train de Vie) (ReelViews)[8]

The Train of Life definitely isn't a bullet train or even an Amtrak on a bad day, for that matter. Yet, it's not a complete derailment either, which is surprising, given its unlikely premise and schizophrenic nature. The film contains just enough poignant moments, not the least of which is the final haunting shot, to convey at least a slight air of gravitas, thus saving a film that at times almost comes off as an unwitting sequel to Springtime for Hitler from Mel Brooks' The Producers. Fortunately, it's not that tasteless...but it's not that funny, either. Instead, Train of Life is a thought-provoking and subversively entertaining chronicle that sheds a quirky light on a death-black era in history.

— Merle Bertrand: TRAIN DE VIE (TRAIN OF LIFE) (Film Threat)[16]

If Mihaileanu's movie portrays the Jews in the tradition of storytellers Sholom Aleichem and Isaac Bashevis Singer as dolts, dunces and misguided prophets, this is his wholly positive intention. [...] Shlomo's tale is mythical, a fable, a fairy story of a part with that large group of folklore designed to help make life bearable for a people subjected to persecution for thousands of years. [...] One of the oddest road movies to hit the screen in ages [...]. Each adventure could well have been the basis of tragedy, but proceeding throughout in a comic tone, Mihaileanu turns each exploit into a farcical event. [...] But if the Yiddish proverb is valid, "A gelechter hertmen veiter vi a gevain," or, "Laughter is heard further than weeping," Train of Life is all the more likely to help keep the memory of the Holocaust alive.

— Harvey S. Karten: Train de vie (1998) (IMDB; originally posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup)[14]<

Each of the three films in this genre has walked the tightrope of taste with amazing dexterity, but Life Is Beautiful was simplistic and wildly over-rated, Jakob the Liar was pretentious and dull, and Train of Life is far too dependent on antiquated stock characters (a village idiot?!?) and elementary, low-brow farce.
The movie's heart is in the right place. It celebrates Jewish tradition and has whimsical fun with its stereotypes and a silly subplot about a communist uprising in the boxcars. But its make-you-laugh, make-you-cry, sappy, spoon-fed sentiment has little substance. It feels like a non-confrontational version of its already meek predecessors.

— Rob Blackwelder: Another derailed Holocaust comedy (SPLICEDwire)[10]

Following in the peculiar tradition of such Holocaust dramedys as Life Is Beautiful and, to a lesser degree, Mel Brooks' version of To Be or Not to Be, this boisterous, comic film begins with a panicked flight through an Eastern European forest and ends on a note of such unexpected gravity that it's difficult to put out of your mind even weeks later. [...] When Train of Life is moving at top speed, Mihaileanu strikes an interesting compromise between portraying the flustered, anxious members of the community as they race to escape an almost certain, deadly fate, and injecting strains of flat-out vaudevillian comedy. It's a tough mix to hold together, and the two styles occasionally clash, but the film has such a bizarre, surrealistic tone to begin with that the topsy-turviness of it all manages to echo the madness of wartime to a tee. Lunacy is the name of the game, and it pays to bear in mind that this is a tale being told by a lunatic. Much of the film is frankly ludicrous, but that does little to dispel its overall power and passion. It's a comedy, it's a horror show, it's a romance, and it's a call to Communist arms—it's such an oddball assemblage that it simply can't click all the time, but when it fires on all cylinders, it's one of the most shocking, affecting Holocaust films yet seen.

— Marc Savlov: Train of Life (Austin Chronicle)[15]

[...] Train of Life, another phantasmagorical tale of life among the Nazis, is upon us. This one works much better. Writer/director Radu Mihaileanu shuffles humor and harsh reality, and comes up with an illuminating film with layers of conflict. Tension lingers constantly, and yet there is joy to be found. [...] Mihaileanu [...] asks you to accept a number of preposterous suppositions - from the main theme to the Fiddler on the Roof kind of joie de vivre to the idea that Shlomo can stand on top of a train car as it whizzes through the countryside - but stick with him. There are some wonderful moments - some tense, some fanciful - along the way and a gut-wrenching payoff that makes sense of it all. (Think The Sixth Sense.) [...] The fake Germans try to perfect their calls of "Sieg Heil!" to comic effect. Down the road a piece [...] the fake Nazis ride in comfort, the Jews do not - suggesting horrible things about power.

— Jim Sullivan: On Train, life's even more beautiful (Boston Globe)[11]

Among other American and international awards, Train of Life won both the FIPRESCI Prize for Best First Feature and the Anicaflash Prize at the 55th Venice International Film Festival, the World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, and the Best Foreign Language Film Award at the Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards 1999.