Trans-Europ-Express is a 1966 film written and directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet and starring Jean-Louis Trintignant and Marie-France Pisier. The title refers to the Trans Europ Express, a former international rail network in Europe.
The film has been variously described as an erotic thriller, a mystery, and a film-within-a-film. Also in the cast were Nadine Verdier, Christian Barbier, Charles Millot, Catherine Robbe-Grillet, and the director. The protagonist is Elias (Trintignant) who is on a dope-running errand from Paris to Antwerp by the train which gives the film its title. The director appears as himself in some sequences which are inter-cut with the action in which Elias is involved. The relationship between Elias and Eva (Marie-France Pisier) involves elements of erotic fantasy.
Screenwriter Robert McKee classifies Trans-Europ-Express as a "nonplot" film, that is, a film that does not tell a story.
The film was released on DVD in 2008 in Italy by Ripley's Home Video and on Blu-ray in 2014 in the US by Redemption Films.
^ McKee, Robert (1997). Story: substance, structure, style, and the principles of screenwriting. New York: ReganBooks. p. 57. ISBN 0060391685.
^ "Trans-Europ Express and Successive Slidings of Pleasure Detailed". Blu-ray.com. 14 January 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2014.Synopsis
Dans le convoi d'un Trans-Europ-Express qui roule entre Paris et Anvers, une équipe de cinéma imagine le scénario d'un film. Un jeune homme aux pulsions sexuelles exacerbées doit prendre livraison d'une valise contenant de la drogue. Très vite, scénario et réalité ne font plus qu'un, ce que le style de la réalisation exprime par des allers et retours entre séquences, les unes en reprenant d'autres avec des variantes de l'action qui expriment les version variables imaginées par l'auteur du scénario, Alain Robbe-Grillet, et cela dans le décor même du train.
Actors