THE STORY – Nine-year-old Milo lives in a remote Argentinian village where he studies the Malambo, a folk dance full of bravura. He is an excellent dancer, but Milo’s only desire is to escape the countryside on a train for the Buenos Aires of his dreams.
THE CAST – Milo Barría, Lucrecia Pazos, Mailén Barría, Mariano Barría, Rita Pauls, Fabián Casas, Pehuén Pedre & Diego Puente
THE TEAM – Lorenzo Ferro & Lucas A. Vignale (Directors/Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 75 Minutes
The remote countryside of Argentina introduces us to “The River Train,” a poetic coming-of-age story that follows a child to the city of his dreams: Buenos Aires. Originally titled “El Tren Fluvial,” writing and directing duo Lorenzo Ferro and Lucas A. Vignale make their feature film debut with an incredibly singular perspective. They capture the vibrancy and solitude of living inside a dream. Through a child’s eyes, Ferro and Vignale depict Buenos Aires with quiet contemplation and a vivid color palette. Capturing the protagonist’s journey from rural family traditions to big-city independence, the film leaps into the unknown and finds a quietly adventurous portrait of boyhood.
For nine-year-old Milo (Milo Barría), a typical day in his childhood involves chores, family dinners, and training as a traditional Malambo dancer. Milo, who lives with his family in a quiet Argentinian village, feels the pressure to perform. In the film’s opening scene, Milo’s father tells him, “Don’t think, speak,” and repeats this phrase several times in a row. Milo is only given the time for one-word responses, each one a different adjective to describe what it takes to persevere in life. The word “resilience” in particular comes up twice, speaking to how Milo’s father pushes him to take the hard road to success. The disciplined father and son dynamic sets a precedent for the restrained, monotonous household that Milo longs to break away from. One day, Milo has a lightbulb moment. He watches a movie in which the main character dreams of working as an artist in Buenos Aires, and Milo goes on to envision a future of possibilities.
Milo devises an escape plan that involves spiking a pot of soup that is about to be served for dinner. Milo watches mischievously as his family members, one by one, fall asleep at the dinner table. He bids them farewell and embarks on a train ride into the city, where new adventures await. There’s an understated magic in how the film moves fluidly between reality and fiction. In one of the more surreal scenes, Milo encounters a sleeping man on the train platform and hears a buzzing sound from the man’s headphones. When Milo removes the headphones and puts them on, a crackling voice asks, “First time here?” Through a mysterious communication frequency, the man converses with Milo and suggests that he visit a nearby hotel for a place to sleep. Once there, Milo meets two roommates who tell him about a theatre production looking to cast kids for a play. What follows is a meditative exploration of a child’s loneliness and curiosity as he wanders through the world.
Much like the character of Milo, played by an excellent Milo Barría, Ferro and Vignale move at a gentle pace to carve out their own paths. With narrative precision and a unique eye for creative expression, they deftly tackle themes of boyhood, maturity, and intergenerational connections. In one scene at the Mirrors Theatre, where Milo auditions for a theatre professor, the professor introduces a crying baby onto the stage. “Whoever can stop this baby from crying will achieve much harder things in life,” she instructs Milo and the other kids auditioning. Milo’s repetition of his father’s “Don’t think, speak” phrase works like a charm to stop the baby’s crying. To navigate the professor’s challenge, Milo uses what he has inherited from his father. It’s a vivid moment of maturity and subtle transformation, where his father’s influence becomes so embedded in his own identity. It’s also a fitting example of how the film successfully uses the coming-of-age framework to experiment with Milo’s perception of himself.
The film portrays Milo’s journey with a strong observational approach that trusts the viewer to make little gems of discoveries along the way. In the remote village setting, we often find the characters in scenes of solitude. Contemplative moments capture Milo’s mother doing laundry, his father watching him practice Malambo, and his sister sitting quietly in the living room, all accustomed to a simpler way of life. Ferro and Vignale bring restrained direction to these moments, suggesting a world of yearning underneath, especially for Milo. In the Buenos Aires setting, we continue to grasp Milo’s solitude as he wanders through the park, walks down the city streets, and curiously absorbs its liveliness. By observing Milo in these spaces, we are given grounded insights into how he relates to the world and where he finds sparks of inspiration.
The restrained approach occasionally works against the film’s effectiveness. Some of the ambiguity around Milo’s internal journey holds the viewer at arm’s length and leaves behind an emotional gap. The connection between Milo and his family, which the film revisits in a reflective conclusion, also feels slightly underwritten. However, Ferro and Vignale excel at capturing how a child’s perspective blurs between reality, memory, and dreaming. Parts of the film feel like being inside an imaginative yet grounded dream, where Milo can escape from pressures back home. Vivid closeups, vibrant colors, and one particularly memorable dance performance involving a wrestler’s mask highlight an artistically expressive character study.
Mastering the “show, don’t tell” approach, “The River Train” places us directly into the experience of a young wanderer in search of more. It’s a film that lives by Milo and his father’s recurring phrase, “Don’t think, speak,” with the instinctive energy of its storytelling. The film excels at visualizing the gravitational pull that calls Milo to Buenos Aires, as well as the subtle change in him when he returns to his family, with many stories to tell.
During his ride home, Milo observes how the train stops at different stations. Many people get on, but he doesn’t recognize them. He wonders if they’ll get off at his stop, but reassures himself that he knows his way home by heart. The film leaves us with this poetic bridge between family upbringing and independence. As people float in and out of Milo’s coming-of-age journey like figments of a dream, he hears the echoes of his life back home. While we don’t see the family back together, the film ends on a far more resonant image of train tracks, capturing a transitional feeling of self-discovery.
