Trees have a magisterial presence in Clint Bentley’s quiet film “Train Dreams,” starting at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center on March 19. In the opening shot, we emerge slowly from an empty train tunnel into a landscape filled with the sounds of birdsong, woodpeckers, and wind whistling through towering trees swaying against a clear azure sky. We hear the words, “There were once passageways to the old world. Strange trails, hidden paths. You’d turn the corner and find yourself face-to-face with the great mystery, the foundation of all things.” Suddenly, the camera comes up close to a pair of old work boots, inexplicably nailed into a great tree trunk. Although we learn of the meaning behind the boots later, at the moment, we simply hear the voice-over continue, “Even though the old world is now gone … you can still feel the echo of it.”
Seconds later, we watch a massive tree topple, and we meet our protagonist, Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), sawing away with a partner across its great trunk. “Train Dreams,” based on a 2011 novella by Denis Johnson, follows Grainier’s life, from his move West as a 6- or 7-year-old orphan to his old age. It focuses, though, on his adult life as a logger on the frontier of the Pacific Northwest, as industrialization takes hold across the U.S. in the early part of the last century.
Robert Granier, a quiet, introspective man of few words, does seasonal work with loggers from far-flung communities, helping to saw down trees in pristine wilderness and build the railways that are starting to cut across the country. He leads a physically demanding life amid the breathtaking scenery around him, captured with stunning cinematography by Adolpho Veloso.
Life as a logger is tough. The physical demands are relentless, and the men are exposed to extreme weather conditions. While there are moments when they work amid great beauty, there is also cold, wet, heat, and fatigue. The towering trees hold a powerful symbolic presence — representing both strength and danger. They can fall the wrong way and maim or kill members of the crew and their horses. One aging logger, Arn Peeples (William H. Macy), recalls, “It was only when you left it alone that a tree might treat you as a friend. After the blade bit in, you had yourself a war.”
Trees are not the only danger, and Grainier is haunted forever by an act of racial brutality against a Chinese worker that he couldn’t prevent, which occurred while working on the railroad.
The light of his life enters: He meets, falls for, and marries Gladys (Felicity Jones), with whom he has a baby daughter. The two are his everything, and it is with them that his tender and more expressive sides emerge. It is a marriage of equals, as the young couple tries to make a life together in the wilderness. The family settles on an idyllic little tract of land along a creek. His departures, as he must leave seasonally to earn money, are heart-wrenching.
At one point, Grainier endures a great tragedy, and much of the film becomes a lyrical immersive meditation on the nature of life, heartbreak, and connection, all set against a world that is changing around him in incomprehensible ways.
“Train Dreams” opens at the M.V. Film Center on March 19. For tickets and information, visit mvfilmsociety.com.