We all have that one film that no matter how many times we've seen it before, we watch it religiously every Christmas Eve. For me, that film is The Polar Express, a strange little animated film directed by Robert Zemeckis and based on the children's book by Chris Van Allsburg (aka the author of Jumanji). The film follows a young boy played by Daryl Sabara, who boards a magical train to the North Pole on Christmas Eve, ultimately restoring his belief in Santa Claus and so on and so forth. However, there's a lot more going on in The Polar Express than just your average Christmas merriment. If you've seen the film you'll know what I mean, but if not, then buckle up because I'm about to take a look at what in the world is going on in The Polar Express.
The film starts out seemingly average, a young boy who's starting to get too old for all the Santa business hops aboard a mystical steam engine en route to the North Pole. Pretty standard stuff, right? So it seems, but what follows is a bizarre journey through a cold, Lynchian landscape, that poses way more questions than it answers. Now I've been watching this film every year for at least the past 10 years or so but there's still so much I don't understand about it, so now, I will attempt to unravel the mystery that is The Polar Express.
What's up with the characters names?
There are plenty of unnamed cinematic protagonists, from Clint Eastwood's mysterious stranger to Ryan Goslings smoldering driver, and the protagonist of The Polar Express known only as 'hero boy' stands proudly among them. However, it's not just hero boy who has no name, he's actually part of the vast majority of nameless characters who occupy the universe of The Polar Express. In fact, only five of the characters in total have names, and one of those is Santa so I don't know if that even counts. On the no name side, we've got hero boy with his companion hero girl (Nona Gaye), the Conductor (Tom Hanks, who plays like 5 characters for some reason), and the Know-it-all kid (Eddie Deezen aka Mandark) to name a few. It's a small detail, but the fact that the majority of these characters have no name only adds an extra layer of intrigue to this already enigmatic film.
What's up with Billy?
Then there's Billy (Jimmy Bennett), the only main character who actually has a name. Billy is the last person to board the train and it's clear from his first appearance that he comes from a poor background, from his clothes to his house, he's doesn't seem very well-off. Like hero boy, Billy is reluctant to board the train at first, but ultimately hops aboard anyway and sits in an empty carriage at the back. Now Billy could easily just be shy or anxious and maybe that's why he chooses to sit away from the other kids, but what if it's something deeper than that? We've already established that Billy is poor, and from the looks of it hero boy is pretty rich. Perhaps the carriages on the Polar Express are some sort of class-system which is why Billy is demoted to the back carriage away from everyone else. In that case, maybe, just maybe, The Polar Express is a spiritual precursor to Snowpiercer. Okay, maybe not, but wouldn't that be a fun crossover?
That's not the big mystery surrounding Billy though, the real enigma is his Christmas present. In the final act, hero boy, hero girl, and Billy make their way into Santa's workshop where Billy finds a large present with his name on it. Billy is keen to hang onto the present, even though Santa's going to deliver it anyway, Billy's not letting go even if his life depended on it. So what's inside the present? Billy thinks he knows, but we don't, because we don't get told anything in this bloody film do we? Maybe the present is actually Billy's soul, and the only reason he boarded the train in the first place was to go to the North Pole and get it back from Santa. Billy does get his present in the end and he's extremely happy with it, maybe after years of living without it he finally got his soul back. So why would Santa have Billy's soul? Well, isn't Santa an anagram for Satan? Think what you will.
What's up with the musical numbers?
Musical numbers are always a strange thing when your film isn't, you know, a musical, and the Polar Express doesn't just have one oddly placed musical number, it's got two. Now the second one isn't so weird, it's just hero girl and soul-less Billy singing about what they love about Christmas (although I don't know how they both knew the lyrics), the first one however is bonkers. It begins with Tom Hanks' conductor entering the carriage and announcing that some hot chocolate is about to be served, and you know, on a cold Christmas Eve what more could you want? Well all of a sudden, an army of waiters break into the carriage in a crazed dance while Tom Hanks leads them in a bizarre song about hot chocolate. They begin to serve the hot chocolate to the passengers while dancing and flipping and all that jazz, not taking into account that they could easily spill it and scauld one of the little nameless freaks. Then, by the time the song is over they've already taken away the hot chocolate without even asking if anybody was finished or if anyone wanted seconds. It's a freaky scene that will simultaneously shock and baffle you, it might even turn you off hot chocolate for the rest of your life. If you thought Holly's dance from Troll 2 was odd, then you'll be really puzzled by this one.
What's up with the elves?
Now you can't have a film about Santa without elves, and the elves of The Polar Express are by far the most peculiar iterations of Santa's little helpers ever. We've had elves on the big screen before, The Santa Clause cast children as elves, while Elf used clever perspectives to make actors look small, but in The Polar Express, the elves are sleazy little fellas who all sound like Sopranos cast members on helium. In one scene an elf attempts to take Billy's present away from him (like I said, he's hanging onto that for dear life), and while he attempts to seem friendly, the chilling way in which he utters the line 'truuuust me' is anything but. And don't even get me started on the Steven Tyler Elf, I don't even want to think about him. These freaky little dudes further prove that the North Pole of The Polar Express is actually some warped version of hell, ruled over by a soul-stealing demon and his army of elves. Even the elves in Rare Exports seem tame in comparison to these creatures.
And while on the subject of elves, I'd like to turn your attention to this iconic moment from The Polar Express here.
I know right?
What's up with time?
That may sound more philosophical than it needs to be, but bare with me. Throughout the film, the conductor constantly reminds hero boy and co. that they are running late and are on a tight schedule and such and such. However, no matter how many times he checks his watch, it's always at five minutes to midnight. As know-it-all boy firmly points out (because he does know it all after all), 'it was five minutes to midnight four minutes ago'. So why is this? Maybe time moves slower in hell than in the real world, or maybe this is Carnival of Souls and everyone's been dead the whole time, but that's a bit dark for a kids movie I suppose (although with Polar Express who knows where the boundaries lie?). I guess you could attribute the frozen time to Christmas magic or something like that, or maybe it was just so cold at the North Pole that time itself froze over. I'm here all week folks.
This Kid:
I don't have any questions surrounding know-it-all kid, I just think he's a gas man and deserves some appreciation.
What's up with the Hobo?
Finally I come to the most enigmatic character of the entire film, the Hobo, also played by Tom Hanks. We first see the Hobo during a lengthy scene where we follow a lost ticket being blown in the wind outside the train, he lies asleep in a hammock under the train and the ticket hits off him. Hero boy then meets him soon later while on the roof of the train where the Hobo makes some crude remarks, claims he's 'the king of the North Pole', then asks hero boy if he believes in ghosts. It's pretty eerie stuff, made even more unnerving when the Hobo later disappears into thin air on several occasions, basically confirming that he is in fact a ghost. While he initially helps hero boy, he later scares the living shit out of him with an Ebeneezer Scrooge puppet for some reason, putting his true motives into question. This has led me to develop a number of theories on who the Hobo actually is:
1. A lodge spirit from Twin Peaks, maybe one of those woodsmen fellas from the new series.
2. A ghost, plain and simple. Was probably hit by the Polar Express and killed seeing as how it basically drives through a town off the rails.
3. The physical embodiment of Billy's lost soul. You remember that from earlier in the post right?
4. The hobo, Santa, and the conductor are all the same character but in different forms. The devil does take many forms after all.
They're all probably untrue and the hobo is most likely something much simpler, or perhaps something even more complex, but my brain already hurts from all this Polar Express discussion so I think I should end it there.
I love The Polar Express, it's a film that leaves many unanswered questions which is weird for a kids film, but oddly suits this films tone. I suppose when you're a kid, Santa is this big mystery to you, and I feel as though The Polar Express perfectly captures this concept by never giving too much away. It's an unusual little Christmas flick that feels like a story David Lynch would've told his kids before putting them to bed, if you're a fan of the unconventional then it's not one to be missed. I'll be back with one more post before Christmas on my top 20 films of the year, so stay tuned for that, but in the meantime if you haven't already seen The Polar Express, then you know what to do.
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