film transsiberian

A Trans-Siberian train journey from China to Moscow becomes a thrilling chase of deception and murder when an American couple encounters a mysterious pair of fellow travelers.
- IMDb.com

Brad Anderson is the Director of Session 9 and The Machinist and is currently in the midst of Transsiberian, a film about an American couple who are travelling on the Trans-Siberian railway from China to Moscow and become friendly with another travelling couple, and before long their journey becomes filled with deception and murder.
- FilmStalker

Brad Anderson is a quintessentially independent film director known for his attention to character psychology and the details and nuance of place, traits that make the superbly crafted thriller Transsiberian an uncommonly absorbing experience. One of those legendary train trips that people used to dream about taking, the Transsiberian Express has probably seen better days. An American couple, Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer), decide to return home the long way from their recent sojourn in Peking and meet another couple from the West, Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and Abby (Kate Mara), with whom they quickly form that tenuous bond that often unites fellow travelers away from home. When Roy gets separated from the train at a stopover, Jessie begins to realize that their compatriots aren’t exactly who or what they seem to be. But the real dangers of their unforgettable trip have only begun to surface; Russian cops (Ben Kingsley plays one), mobsters, and locals are still to come.

As much a psychological puzzle piece as artful suspense, the film showcases Anderson's newfound skill with dramatic action that meshes seamlessly with his engrossing atmosphere. Blessed with a engagingly subtle performance by the always-exemplary Mortimer and a surprisingly fresh turn by Harrelson, Transsiberian transports us into a new and different world and creates a unique cinematic experience.
– Sundance Film Guide

Pr: Julio Fernandez

CoP: Carlos Fernandez, Jet Christiaanse, Alvaro Augustin

Ci: Xavi Gimenez

Ed: Jaume Marti

After the premiere Friday night at Sundance of Transsiberian, director Brad Anderson said his new film was inspired by the passage he made aboard the title train - from Beijing through Mongolia to Moscow over seven days - in 1988 after graduating form college.

Anderson, whose Next Stop Wonderland was Sundance hit a decade ago, must have had a lot of time to think: The film is a marital drama meets police thriller and has what every good train ride should: lust, murder, Russian cops, a lot of vodka. And then some: a bag full of heroin, windows nailed shut, a tough female Russian conductor, a train wreck with lives hanging in the balance. And enough suspense to bridge a few plot holes and overripe character details.

Cast members Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer and Eduardo Noriega were on hand at the sold-out Eccles auditorium at the Park City High School. Harrelson and Mortimer play a Midwestern couple traveling back from a religious mission in China, struggling to keep their marriage together at the point when a mysterious Spaniard (Noriega) and his 20-year-old girlfriend (Kate Mara) climb aboard.

Anderson said that the film was shot in Lithuania on 40 kilometers of track that the government gave him to use and that computer-generated imagery helped compensate for the slim $15 million budget in the high-impact scenes.

The London-based Mortimer said she didn't know she was even going to do the film until two days before shooting began in Lithuania, and took a night train with son Sam, now 4, in tow. She arrived to start filming before she'd even finished reading the script.

Anderson called the film "a bit of a cautionary tale, and a bit of a morality play."

Harrelson praised Anderson as a bit of a maestro but acknowledged that filmmaking "is always a crapshoot."