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A red star painted on a pale wall — ▶ Excerpt · 3′30″

199056 minDocumentary

Nord Express

In 1896 Georges Nagelmackers launched the Nord Express from Paris to St Petersburg. In 1990 the film rides the 47 hours from Paris to Moscow, in a time of upheaval: in Paris railwaymen lay the new TGV lines, in Berlin the Wall is crumbling, and at Brest, on the Soviet border, the carriages are moved onto broad-gauge bogies. Galina, the sleeping-car attendant, makes tea. In the corridor Theodore, a student, looks out over the curtain. In West Berlin the painter Ben Wargin doubts we will ever go any faster.

Press

“That Nord Express still makes for a particular experience comes from the fact that Rombout has made not the journey, but travelling itself, the subject of his film.”

‘Dat Nord Express niettemin een bijzondere ervaring teweegbrengt, heeft te maken met het feit dat Rombout niet de reis, maar het reizen zelf tot onderwerp van zijn film heeft gemaakt.’

Ernie Tee, Skrien, 1991 · Our translation.

“It makes you want to leave. Not for a trip round the world in forty days, from one airport to the next. But for a real journey.”

« Il donne envie de partir. Non pas pour un tour du monde en quarante jours, d’un aéroport à l’autre. Mais pour un véritable voyage. »

Marie-Christine Pasche, La Tribune de Genève, 1990 · Our translation.

1990Nord Express : un film qui arrive à l’heureRené Begon, La Wallonie · PDF ↗
1990La lente hâte du voyage en trainMarie-Christine Pasche, La Tribune de Genève · PDF ↗
1991Paris-Moscou, l’anti-TGVBéatrice Bocard, Libération · PDF ↗
1991Een reis zonder ontsporingenErnie Tee, Skrien · PDF ↗
2022A journey through HistoryMarc-Emmanuel Mélon, The Mise en Scène of the Real, Yellow Now, provisional translation · PDF ↗

Photographs

Crew members in winter jackets around a film lamp on a stand in a Paris street, apartment buildings behind — 1990Paris, Gare du Nord

A crane arm holding a film lamp against a grey sky, beside the arched facade of the Gare du Nord — 1990Paris, Gare du Nord

People chipping at a stretch of the Berlin Wall covered in graffiti; in front, a sound recordist with a boom crouches beside a kneeling man, a tripod on the ground — 1990Berlin, the Wall

At the Berlin Wall, a cameraman crouching with a camera, a sound recordist with a boom behind him and a man in a cap and dark jacket beside them — 1990Berlin, the Wall, Olivier Struye

Five people in winter coats in a field, one of them holding up a large golden dog — 1990Border between Poland and the GDR

A group of people standing in a field of dry grass, a steel railway bridge on the horizon under heavy clouds — 1990Border between Poland and the GDR

Dusk at a stone railway viaduct with the word STADION in large letters, a train passing above and two figures in the lit arched passage — 1990Warsaw, Stadion station

Two men with a film camera leaning out of the window of a green Soviet carriage, a third man standing outside — 1990Soviet Union, Brest, Jean-Philippe Laroche, Louis-Philippe Capelle and Marc Ridley

In the snow by railway tracks, a cameraman kneels with the camera while a sound recordist holds a microphone; a woman in an orange vest stands nearby — 1990Soviet Union, Nemchinovka

A man in a hooded jacket on snowy railway tracks, looking through a camera; a woman watches from the window of a green signal box — 1990Soviet Union, Nemchinovka

Seen from below, three people with a camera on the platform of a crane, against a pale sky — 1990Moscow, Belorussky station

A wet square in front of a long green and white station building with towers, a red crane arm raised above parked lorries — 1990Moscow, Belorussky station

Technical sheet

Title: Nord Express
Year: 1990
Runtime: 56 min
Countries: Belgium, France
Languages: French, German, Polish, Russian
Production: Paradise Films, with Triangle 7, RTBF, CAC-CICV Montbéliard and Wallonie Image Production
Availability: On request
Versions: 56′, the length of the master. Mélon 2022 prints 58′ in the credits and 52′, a television slot, in its filmography (p. 254).

Direction: Rob Rombout
Script: Rob Rombout, Christian Janssens
Image: Louis-Philippe Capelle
Assistant camera: Marc Ridley
Sound: Olivier Struye, Paul Heymans
Editing: Adriana Moreira de Oliveira
Mix: Jacques Clisse
Music: Piotr Hertel
Executive producer: Marilyn Watelet
Line producers: Jean-Philippe Laroche, Catherine Derosier
With: Galina, Theodore, Ben Wargin

Selections

1990World Wide Video Festival, The Hague
1990Videobrasil, São Paulo
1990Manifestation internationale de vidéo et de télévision, Montbéliard
1990Vidéos du réel, Saint-Gervais
1991Videofest 91, Berlin

Transcripts

▶ Excerpt · 3′30″

0:49

Мне кажется, преимуществ здесь никаких нет. Таких, чтобы можно было сказать: «Это счастье, быть проводником». У меня перспективы совершенно никакой нет. Совершенно. Только ездить хоть 10, хоть 20 лет проводником. Как буду ездить в соцстраны, так и буду ездить. Или если будут какие-нибудь жалобы, могут снять. А дальше куда? Ничего.

It seems to me there are no advantages here. None that would let you say: 'What happiness, to be a carriage attendant.' I have no prospects at all. None at all. Only to go on working as an attendant, 10 years or 20. As I travel to the socialist countries now, so I will go on travelling. Or if there are any complaints, they can take me off. And where then? Nothing.

1:21

Я же женщина. А мужчины... У меня муж партийный, у него есть перспектива выйти на капстраны, то есть ездить, как все мужчины партийные ездят: в Париж, […] и другие капстраны. Но он тоже из-за меня не может поехать, потому что я женщина, а женщин за границу не пускают.

I'm a woman, after all. Whereas the men... My husband is a Party member, he has the prospect of moving on to the capitalist countries, that is, of travelling the way all the Party men travel: to Paris, […] and other capitalist countries. But he can't go either, because of me, because I'm a woman, and women aren't allowed abroad.

1:46

Пока я буду здесь работать на этом участке проводником, он дальше Берлина, Праги, Варшавы никуда не дёрнется. Это значит, чтобы ему куда-то выйти на другие страны, мне надо или увольняться, или планы такие: иметь ребёнка и сидеть дома с ребёнком.

As long as I work here on this section as an attendant, he won't get anywhere beyond Berlin, Prague, Warsaw. That means that for him to move on to other countries, I would have to either quit, or, these are the plans: have a child and stay at home with the child.

2:12

У меня есть мечта такая: цветы выращивать, тихий уголочек какой-нибудь. Я всё своему мужу говорю: «Давай уедем к маме». У меня мама в Бердянске живёт. В огороде покопаться. Очень приятно, когда в вазочке всегда цветочки стоят, и их можно полюбоваться, понюхать.

I have this dream: to grow flowers, some quiet little corner somewhere. I keep telling my husband: 'Let's go and live with my mother.' My mother lives in Berdyansk. To dig about in the vegetable garden. It is very nice when there are always flowers in a little vase, and you can admire them, smell them.

2:37

Муж знает мою слабость. У меня что на работе, что дома цветы никогда не убывают. У меня такая мечта: иметь цветы. А когда эта мечта сбудется, кто его знает, может, на старости лет.

My husband knows my weakness. At work and at home alike, I am never without flowers. That is my dream: to have flowers. And when this dream will come true, who knows, maybe in my old age.

Transcribed from the sound of the excerpt and edited; English translations are ours.