Daniel Takes a Train

In 1956 two teenage boys, one an army deserter whose unit turned against the government when the Russians rolled in, the other an apolitical youth called Daniel who aims to follow his girlfriend and her family to the West, take one of the last, overcrowded trains from Budapest to Vienna during the brief period when emigration was allowed. The atmosphere of panic and moral dilemma (whether to stay loyal to Hungary or escape to 'freedom') is keenly sustained, and the period reconstruction well bolstered by Elemér Ragályi's clever camerawork. But apart from the buddy relationship of the two fugitives, characterisation is thin, and there's almost too much plot incident to keep it on the rails. Still, it rattles along and is by turns amusing and heartstopping. (The conflict between the generations is more than touched on, but the implications - of the ending in particular - might have emerged more clearly had censorship not eliminated the information that Daniel has in fact killed his father).