Hence the film's title. In this film, the main storylines follow three gay men who are squabbling and a couple recently separated thrown together only because of the funeral. Most of them converge in the morning at the Austerlitz train station, rushing to sip coffees and gather drugs, say hello and mount the train. As the train takes off the action speeds along as the train does, moving quickly from car to car and back again. Outside the train window for a moment, across a wheat field, some of the passengers see the Peugeot station wagon which is transporting the body, a coffin in a private car.
Some moments are amusing.
But what these people seem to have in common is gutter language, a lot of anger, and an odd mixture of attachment and irreverence toward their old dead friend Emmerich, who was, apparently, a dark character. At the other end of the train, we meet a tamer set of family and friends, and together they all go to the cemetery. Of note are cameos by Jean-Louis Trintignant as Emmerich's twin brother, and by Vincent Perez. I expected this to be a journey of self-discovery for each of the travellers, and to have been able to relate to Chereau's take on human beings, but I had no feeling for the mostly destructive and morose characters. The standout train sequences were shot in 14 days on the Mulhouse line, used often by French film crews.