Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Clint Bentley, Netflix’s ‘Train Dreams‘ can be described as a chronotope, blending narratives of time and space to tell the story of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker. While most of his summers are spent working, what his heart truly longs for is the comfort of his family. However, when a traumatic incident turns everything upside down, Robert has to learn to live from scratch. The historical drama movie is an adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novella of the same name, and captures the entire spectrum of experiences that Robert goes through in his lifetime, and the emotions that are born out of them. In doing so, the story moves from love to loss and then to healing, rendering a complete portrait of the human condition along the way. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Train Dreams Traverses Along the Path of the Great Northern Railway
Adapted to the screen from Denis Johnson’s eponymous novella by director and co-writer Clint Bentley, ‘Train Dreams’ paints a vivid image of the homeland’s modernization from the perspective of Robert Grainier, a railroad worker and tree feller. To that end, the film’s grand scope captures the entirety of the homeland, but its main focus is on the western front. At the very beginning of the movie, we are told exactly how far Robert journeyed in his lifetime, starting with the fact that he came within a few dozen miles of the Pacific Ocean, but never made it to any sea-facing regions of the country. To the east, he travelled as far as the town of Libby, in Montana. While he grew up in the Idaho town known as Fry, Robert spent his adult life in and around Bonners Ferry, Idaho, with the bulk of his travels constituting working on the rail network.
As the movie unfolds, we see Robert and his crew set camp at various points in the Pacific Northwest region of America, starting with the Idaho Panhandle. From there, he steps into Washington, working along the Okanogan Range, specifically on the Robinson Gorge bridge, before returning to his cabin, which is situated not far from the Kootenai River at the heart of Idaho’s Moyea Valley. Following a tragic incident, Robert’s career as a railroad worker comes to a stop, and he spends more of his time travelling within the state. In the final years of his travels, the highlights come from his semi-frequent train trips to the town of Spokane, located in the eastern part of Washington. As such, Robert’s journey blends together the dense forest cover of the American West with its industrial towns and cities, capturing the essence of that landscape in the process.
Train Dreams Chronicles the Technological Highs of the 20th Century
The story of ‘Train Dreams’ begins with the turn of the 20th century, and later extends to the 1960s. Although we are not given a specific date or year of Robert Grainier’s birth, his death in November 1968 helps with an approximation. Earlier in the movie, the narrator mentions that Robert was six or seven when he was sent to Idaho, following which he spent the next eight decades in the region. This roughly indicates that Robert was born around 1881 and spent much of his teenage years understanding the evolving zeitgeist of the homeland. As the construction process of the Great Northern Railway reportedly concluded around 1889, it can be inferred that Robert’s work consisted mostly of repair and maintenance. In the summer of 1917, Robert is depicted working on the Robinson Gorge bridge in Washington, following which, he spends a few more years on the job before settling back in Idaho.
In the later years of his life, we see Robert make a trip to Spokane, in Washington, and while no exact timestamp is provided, the details of the scene help pinpoint the year. On the television, Robert watches Astronaut John Glenn exit the Earth’s atmosphere and head into space. This places Robert in or around the year 1962, about 6 years before his death. The movie makes very conscious use of its time jumps and non-linear narratives, approaching the industry developments that Robert contributed to through a bird’s-eye perspective. In doing so, it effectively captures just how impressive the leap from rail to space was, as well as how it impacted the world. Robert’s journey is one of both time and space, and the points of intersection help navigate both his consciousness and the nation’s at large.
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