Train d'enfer (1984)
Directed by Roger Hanin

Film Review

With Train d'enfer, Algerian-born actor-turned director Roger Hanin makes an unashamed, and justified, assault on the complacency of the French state in regard to one of the most important issues facing this country at the present time: racial intolerance. Whilst intended for a French audience, the film should strike a chord with spectators in other countries in the West, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, where racial hatred and discrimination remain major concerns, with rightwing political parties gaining ever more support from an electorate fearful of immigration. Hanin famously described Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of France's National Front party as a 'true Nazi', for which Le Pen filed a lawsuit against him for defamation in 1990.

Although Hanin perhaps goes a little over the top in presenting the issue (the film features some very improbable scenes), he does manage to get across the point very effectively, that there is a very narrow line between national pride and xenophobia.  That great emblem of French national unity, La Marseillaise, is unfurled and presented in the worst light, reinforcing the impact of the atrocity that has been revealed, and almost ridiculing the notion of nationalism when placed beside the horror which that nationalism can inspire.

This is not a comfortable film to watch.  In some ways, it is bleaker than many of the tough gangster films that Hanin has starred in over the preceding three decades (La Valse du gorille (1959), Le Grand pardon (1982)). The murder of the young Arab at the start of the film is very graphic and shocking - intentionally so, in order that those terrible images remain lodged in our minds throughout the film.  Almost daily, we are confronted with new stories of similar assaults, but somehow witnessing this kind of racially motivated attack brings home its true horror.  In the film, the murder is witnessed by dozens of train passengers who simply turn a blind eye and do nothing.  The one person who does try to intervene herself becomes the target for assault.  This is a depressingly honest painting of a sick society.  Fortunately, by presenting the police and racial communities in a predominantly positive light, the film offers some hope for the future. Thirty years on, Train d'enfer is still depressingly relevant.

Film Synopsis

A young Arab is attacked and killed on a high-speed train by some young thugs and a right-wing activist.  A young woman reports the crime to the police but she herself is later killed.   Someone in the police is actively stimulating racial tension and supporting extreme right-wing activities…