Where the Trains Used to Go

Ever since he was lucky enough as a child to go to a cinema equipped with a large-format projector (like IMAX), Norwegian filmmaker Morten Skallerud has dreamed of creating such a work himself. This dream came true with A Year Along the Abandoned Road (1991), for which he developed a groundbreaking cinematic technique, “nature animation,” whose epic effect is largely reliant on the large-format dimensions (we present the film and describe its technique in detail here). About ten years later, Skallerud embarked on a new adventure, capturing the journey along an old railway line, partially abandoned and transformed into a railway museum.

A childhood dream, an innovative filming technique, a journey by train… all the ingredients are here to take us back to the late 19th century, to the beginnings of the magical art of the moving picture—whose history, unlike a railway, is far from linear. Returning to these simpler forms of cinema—and innovating from them—enables the filmmaker to captivate a contemporary audience, hyper-aware of audiovisual codes and immersed, if not overwhelmed, by this overabundance of images, as expressed by our own Bernard Émond (Il y a trop d'images, 2011). With this train journey proposed by Skallerud, we rediscover that joyful feeling of going back to a childhood place, remembering how small we once were… and how everything seemed so grand!

Emmanuel Bernier
Head of Acquisitions at Tënk
and loony bird