The Railway Man

A film based on a real life. Eric Lomax is a man fascinated by trains who knows the timetables by heart. He meets Patti on a journey and they marry. Afterwards she sees that her husband cannot sleep at night, will not enter certain rooms and tells her nothing. The narrative turns back. Lomax was taken prisoner at Singapore in the Second World War and put to work building the railway between Thailand and Burma. When it is discovered that the prisoners have built a radio, he is taken for interrogation. Patti tries to get information from her husband's old comrades. Eventually news comes: the Japanese officer who interpreted at his interrogation is still alive and works today as a guide on that same railway. The last section is that meeting. The narrative does not offer forgiveness as an easy solution; what the meeting will bring stays uncertain until the final moments. The source is Lomax's own book. Colin Firth plays Lomax, Jeremy Irvine his younger self, Nicole Kidman plays Patti and Hiroyuki Sanada the Japanese officer. Stellan Skarsgård is in the cast. Jonathan Teplitzky directed. A sober production for anyone who likes narratives of postwar trauma. Before you watch, know this: the film shows scenes of torture and those sections are long.