Patrice Leconte's L'Homme du train | The Man on the Train (2002)

Patrice Leconte's L'Homme du train has only two characters of note: Manesquier (Jean Rochefort) and Milan (Johnny Hallyday). On the surface they couldn't be more different from each other – Manesquier is a taciturn, scarcely educated bank robber with brusque manners, whereas Milan is a retired French school teacher interested in poetry and playing the piano.

But from these highly improbable details stems a brief but hugely powerful bromance. Manesquier enters town (in reality Annonay, although it isn't mentioned) in the evening when everywhere's shutting down and he buys some aspirins for his headache. Milan is just leaving the shop and knows that no hotels are open that time of year, so puts Manesquier up for the night, and has lunch with him the next day and so on for a few days.

Milan knows that Manesquier has come to raid the bank, but far from being annoyed is exited. When Manesquier isn't there he tries on his leather, fringed jacket, trying out Western expressions, and is well aware that his guest has guns with him. His wish is to try using a gun himself, try to knock tin cans down, and in the budding relationship Manesquier is only too willing to allow him to do so. In effect he is trying on the role of the man he would like to have been.

Meanwhile a similar transformation is taking place in Manesquier too: on hearing Milan give a young boy a private lesson, which is on Paul-Jean Toulet's poem 'En Arles', when the boy has left, he asks why the poet says 'Prends garde à douceur des choses', which he finds an odd expression. And later he asks about a line of poetry he knows: 'Sur le Pont Neuf j'ai rencontré', which is in fact the first line of a poem by Aragon, and Milan continues it for him. Even more tellingly, Milan isn't in when his private lesson pupil calls so Manesquier holds the book in question, which is Balzac's Eugénie Grandet – even though he knows nothing about it – and asks the boy questions on the story, what it is about: remarkably, it is evident from the nature of the questions that Manesquier would have made an extremely good teacher if his life hadn't gone the other way.

In an awesome kind of ballet of death – on the Saturday of the bank robbery the two men part company, Milan going to an important hospital operation – the robbery and the operation are constantly juxtaposed, as if each takes place at the exact time. And both men die at the same time, although they both come alive again for a few moments. They, or their souls, cross the street barely noticing one another, Milan takes his place on the train for Manesquier's return journey, and Manesquier goes to Milan's house to try out the piano. Spellbinding.