Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985)

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

An unfinished Japanese children's story from 1927 in the "Metaphysical & Visionary" section of a bookstore is hardly going to be noticed no matter what the current trend is. We've plowed through magic, supernatural romance, and now dystopian YA fiction in the past decade but something so offbeat is only going to be known to those who look REALLY hard for it. Kenji Miyazawa's (who died of pneumonia at the age of 37) Night on the Galactic Railroad was adapted into this equally obscure and mind-boggling Anime movie that feels like a cross between David Lynch and Studio Ghibli. Trying to figure out what exactly is going on is an exercise in pointlessness as the film is mainly to be enjoyed for its enormously cryptic sense of wonder and quiet epicnness.On a planet populated by cats living in an almost-perfect early 20th century society a young kitten with a lonely and difficult life called Giovanni is whisked away across the Milky Way on a mysterious and completely empty locomotive. Along the way numerous enigmatic passengers materialize and disappear, including Giovanni's only friend Campanella, who he slowly realizes has died and is being taken to heaven. This is not My Neighbor Totoro, this is dark, brooding, depressing stuff. Not many children are going to be entertained by this.Directed by Anime icon Gisaburo Suuji this film is surrealist, psychedelic, dreamlike, disembodied, abandoned, existential, and overwhelmingly puzzling. It's a fusion of Christian, Buddhist, and Salvador Dali imagery on acid. It has a captivating and haunting vibe that I know for sure influenced both Chris Van Allsburg and Robert Zemeckis when they wrote and directed The Polar Express. The sudden appearance of the train, the unexpected magical journey, a downbeat hero who needs to overcome his sadness...there's no way that it's just a coincidence.A fun time it is not. An extremely singular viewing experience it most certainly is.

In researching this movie before I watched it, I noted some mention of Christian themes, and assumed that there would be some recurring religious motifs in it, something on the order of the Matrix. However, I was wholly unprepared for the almost abusively forward religious imagery that seems to randomly crop up. Accordingly, this is just a general warning to other viewers, that if giant galactic crosses and esperanto hymns aren't your thing, you may want to skip this. I can't in good conscience rate this lower than a 5, because (as every other reviewer has noted) this is still a terribly beautiful movie, with heart-wrenching scenes and a fine message. But seriously, the Christianity pops up all over the place, and just when you think "oh, that's not so bad, I can ignore that part," everyone starts talking about praising god again.

This film is up there with all of Miyazaki's works, including "Spirited Away," "Princess Mononoke," and "My Neighbour Totoro."It has a very surreal quality and a deceptive cuteness to it, which may trick you into thinking it trite or superficial. However, like some of the best Anime out there, "cute" can leave you open to some horrifying consequences. Obviously it's not as heavy as "Grave of the Fireflies" or as light hearted and uplifting as "Totoro", but this film lies somewhere in between. I haven't read the book, but I'll bet it's similar in theme and scope to "Le Petit Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.I'm certainly not a Christian, and often tire easily when confronted by blatant Christian imagery in film, literature, and music. However, this film requires a degree of spirituality to get its point across, and the Christian images present, while overpowering at times, represent a nebulous kind of spirituality -- as if it's saying "there is a force out there which helps determine our fates, but I can't define what it is."For example, the film takes place in some alternate European world (most likely Italy) and the characters have Italian names. But they're anthropomorphic cats and don't appear to practice any kind of Christianity (they celebrate moon festivals, and sail lantern boats in the river). However, they later meet up with human children on the train, and listen to Christian hymns on the wireless ("Nearer my God to Thee"). They pass several different layers of Heaven, and Giovani, the main character, has a special ticket that allows him passage to "the one True Heaven".The film, like the train, takes its time to get where it's going, and some powerful messages come across to the viewer. Unlike many Anime and Western films, this one does not end with a happy and neatly tied-up ending, nor does it take pains to explain the things that go on inside the train. It leaves that to the viewer. This is what makes good art films. This is what makes a film worthwhile.

This anime was so bad it caused a friend of mine to crash his car when he left the viewing. Don't ever see this garbage. Even for an art film it is bad. I love cats but I couldn't bare to sit through this bomb again. I even love art anime but this one almost made me sick. Too much art not enough plot. Read the book if you want but don't watch this anime.