Night on the Galactic Railroad
 Mike Toole  rates it:    

It takes a real artist to create a children's story that's as heavy with melancholy as it is with wonder. Antoine de St-Exupéry was such an artist, with his rich, imaginative The Little Prince. Kenji Miyazawa, the "visual sketch artist" who captured Japan's literary imagination for much of the 20th century, is another such artist, as his Night on the Galactic Railroad proves. It's a story that he's specifically characterized as being meant for adolescents, yet it's surprisingly complex and morally hefty. This film, created in 1985, is a faithful adaptation of Miyazawa's story, with one interesting twist-- all of the characters are portrayed as cats.

The film's central character is Giovanni, a youthful student who seems to view the world with a sort of uneasy fascination. His life isn't an easy one-- his father is in jail for poaching, and his mother is chronically ill, which means he has to work part-time doing typesetting at a print shop. He's a painfully earnest boy; the casually vicious insults of his immature classmates seem to hurt him much more than his need to earn money for his family or his turbulent home life. His one good friend is Campanella, a quiet boy with whom Giovanni played as a small child.

Night on the Galactic Railroad opens with a snapshot of Giovanni's normal life; he plods along in school, helped by his concerned teacher; he goes to work for a kind but distracted print shop worker; and he wanders home to his mother, who is never actually shown onscreen. The village he lives in is pretty to look at, reminiscent more of an impressionist painting of a densely-packed village than of an actual town. He tries to enjoy his town's Festival of Stars, but his peers don't want him around, and he's left wandering on the outskirts of the village. He finds himself confronted by an enormous, silent steam train; when he boards, he finds the train empty, but then his friend Campanella appears. Campanella is happy to see Giovanni, but seems strangely wise-- and then the train takes off for its first stop, Galaxy Station.

The rest of the film has a richness to it that I'm loath to spoil here. As the train proceeds through the milky way, Giovanni talks to his friend, and thinks about life. The film's dialogue is a wealth of small, good moments-- "I believe that people are happiest when they do something truly good," Campanella earnestly proclaims at one point. Presently, the pair encounter others on their trip-- they briefly see a crowd of people praying to the Northern Cross, and talk to a wise archaeologist on the Pliocene Coast. They're joined on the train by a cheerful bird catcher, whose prey-- Herons, mostly-- turns to candy when he captures it. They meet a troubled, blind wireless operator, who seems to hear nothing but Hymn #306.

At the Observatory of Albireo, human beings actually board the train, and that's when Giovanni starts to realize the true nature of the vehicle, and why Campanella is with him on it. The humans are a mother and daughter, along with a man who was escorting them to meet the rest of their family. They've suffered a terrible fate, but seem untroubled; "We can all reach happiness," the man explains.

Night on the Galactic Railroad has not been remastered since its original run in 1985, and it's beginning to show its age. The transfer on the DVD is good, but there's some frame jitter, especially in the opening credits. The film's music is very unusual and a little discordant-- it reminded me more of Wendy Carlos compositions than of more typical anime music. Night on the Galactic Railroad was directed by Gizaburo Sugii, a man who started his career with children's fare like Jack & the Beanstalk, but has found success more recently with the Street Fighter II movie. His direction is nice and moderate; he presents the film as a series of brief, quiet conversations between the characters. This deftness could probably also be attributed to screenwriter Minoru Betsuyaku, who's a well-known playwright in Japan.

The dub is well-produced, which is still rare when it comes to Central Park Media dubs. I'm guessing that much of this has to do with the involvement of Crispin Freeman; not only does he excellently portray the sagelike Campanella, he helped write the ADR adaptation with Neil Nadelman. The rest of the cast is similarly excellent; Veronica Taylor effortly carries off the movie as the troubled Giovanni, and the two are supported by the likes of Rachael Lillis, Lisa Ortiz, and David Moo. It looked to me like the DVD subtitles were a "dub-title"-- they matched the spoken dub lines a little too closely-- but as the dub script is very close to the original translation, that probably isn't anything to worry about.

One interesting aspect of the film that's often overlooked is the fact that all of the signs and title cards are in Esperanto. This makes sense; Miyazawa was a staunch Esperantist (a fact I'd overlooked until my girlfriend pointed it out). This seems puzzling at first, but it ends up blending well with the "universal" feel of the story. It's one detail that helps make the film what it is.

Night on the Galactic Railroad is modestly-paced, but it's a wonderfully entertaining movie-- it does an excellent job of conveying Miyazawa's ideas of "visual poetry" (which include, in one magnificent scene, the sight of magpies flying to roost in a tree, where they soundlessly turn into apples). Its message is essentially a tragic one-- that adulthood, for most people, means separation from the friends they knew as children-- but still one worth hearing. The movie also has a rare quietness to it-- the dialogue of the characters is important, but no more important than the sprawling fields of flowers, or the sparkling beach.

"We all live in the waters of the galactic river," explains Giovanni's teacher near the beginning of the film. The story of Night on the Galactic Railroad may sell itself as a trip to the end of the universe, but it's really an examination of human relationships and human morality. Miyazawa's story has a definite and bittersweet message, but it also has the sense to leave things open to interpretation. This movie is an outstanding presentation of a marvelous and important and sad story; it's a film worth viewing again and again.

Added:  Saturday, October 18, 2003

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