Here’s a nice little short film, The Night Train (Nat Taget), 14 min, from Sweden, director Jerry Carrlson.
Oskar (Erik Nilsson) has apparently had a first-job interview in Stockholm and rides home on the night train (maybe north). In the same 2nd class cabin he meets Ahmad (Khalil Ben Gharbia) who starts teasing him with drippings of liquid yellow licorice. (No Pizza here.)
The meet in the (genderless) bathroom. There is no other place. This kissing is passionate but doesn’t lead to much exposure. You get the impression that Oskar regards Ahmad as possessing more raw 'maleness'. It’s all about upward affiliation.
A female security officer knocks on the door and threatens to come in. That connects up the Harmon circle of the story.
I don’t see that any phone numbers (or Tik Tok accounts) were traded.
But I did wonder if Ahmad had been an asylum seeker (from the Islamic world) and had adapted. Someone would have had to take a risk for him.
Train movies are interesting. Recently saw 'Bullet Train'. Remember 'Strangers on a Train'? I don’t think I've seen the 1940 'Night Train to Munich'.
I could haul out my recollection of the 2011 thriller Source Code (Summit Entertainment, directed Duncan Jones), starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Capt. Colter Stevens, who is tasked to find a bomber on a train to Chicago before the explosion happens. The move goes back in time several times as he has multiple attempts to find out, by a time-machine (or holographic/simulation mechanism, or maybe metaverse). In a late seen you see his body after maiming, with most of its parts except his head cut off from previous combat.
(Posted Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 11 PM EDT)