Train to Adulthood

Pioneer railway where children can be engine drivers, conductors dispatch trains used to be the dream of every children. The Budapest children (Viktor, Karmen and Gergő) operate old fashioned switches, line up for the flag ceremony and sing around the camp fire: “The pioneers’ land is full of happy tunes” What could easily have been an exercise in phony nostalgia unfolds as a sensitive coming of age drama. They must shoulder responsibilities not only at the railway: they were confronted with the tough reality of capitalism at an early age. It shows that it is the only thing that offers security on the road to the future, while all the institutions that are supposed to do this are absent. The image of the rolling train as a symbol of longing acquires a different meaning, a bit romanticism.