Help me identify this movie breastfeeding scene

February 1, 2008 3:35 AM

Help me identify a movie which contains this scene: A woman and a man are on a moving train. The woman's breasts are painfully full of milk; the man is hungry. The woman breastfeeds the man, satisfying both their needs. What I know: This is similar to the breastfeeding scene at the end of The Grapes of Wrath. What I think I know: The scene I am thinking of is not from the movie of The Grapes of Wrath itself. The train is moving (unlike the stationary wagon/barn in TGoW). The movie is Russian, or of a Russian novel. The scene is presented as a parable, with a solemn voiceover. The scene is at the beginning of the movie, and the movie is from the 60s or 70s.
posted by beniamino to media & arts (16 comments total)

There is a short story by Guy de Maupassant that has this basic plot. I can't find it on Google, however... it is mentioned in a theatre article here.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 3:44 AM on February 1, 2008

It does strike a cord, but I can't quite recall the movie. I'm thinking of a war movie, Europe, Nazi, wooden train seats...but no title.
posted by francesca too at 3:53 AM on February 1, 2008

Ah! Here's the Maupassant story: Idyll. Hope this helps somehow.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 4:06 AM on February 1, 2008

Dammit, it's ringing bells with me too. Google suggests The Peacemaker (set in Russia) but I doubt I've seen that film and it's not what I'm remembering anyway. Back to Google...
posted by ceri richard at 5:01 AM on February 1, 2008

It is NOT The Peacemaker. That's one of my favorite movies, seen it several times and I'm pretty sure I would have remembered a scene like that. Plus it's from th e'90s.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:33 AM on February 1, 2008

Komissar?
posted by iconomy at 6:33 AM on February 1, 2008

Here's IMDB's list of movies with "breast feeding" as a plot keyword. The number of movies that match both "breast feeding" and "train" is four, but none of those is Russian.
posted by limon at 7:13 AM on February 1, 2008

One more possibility: A Russian short (38 minutes I think) called Nachalo Nevedomogo Veka, from 1967 but apparently shelved until the 80s. It was also called Angel. There is a train scene in the beginning of the film:

The first tale, Andrei Smirnov's ''Angel,'' begins on a weary train crowded with weary people trying to get out of the way of the post-revolution civil war. We come to know a few of them: an irascible engine driver and his spunky daughter; a goofy young man traveling with a cow that he believes will bring him fortune; a pregnant farm woman who shows him how the animal should be milked....''
posted by iconomy at 7:59 AM on February 1, 2008

A total longshot, but did you live in Austin around 2001? I have a distinct memory of that film (it was a short) being made by a UT grad student around that time. Although I suppose it could have made the festival circuit and you saw it elsewhere... No idea of the title, I'm afraid. It was definitely an adaptation of the Guy de Maupassant story.
posted by catesbie at 8:06 AM on February 1, 2008

(I realize you said Russian, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway. How many could there be?)
posted by catesbie at 8:07 AM on February 1, 2008

This is a short film based on Idyll, but it's from 2000. Just in case it jogs a memory or two.
posted by iconomy at 8:51 AM on February 1, 2008

game warden: Aha! The Idyll rings all kinds of bells, I'm sure that's the source, and that the voiceover was taken from the text of the story. I'm now scouring the internet for film versions that are old enough for me to have seen them in about 1990. [Given the erotic nature of the story, I'm a little worried that the answer will turn out to be a bit seamy.] I'm beginning to doubt the Russian connection, but am sure it was set in continental Europe.

Both Pastoral (thanks iconomy) and Mezzogiorno are based on the story, but not the movie I'm thinking of.
posted by beniamino at 9:28 AM on February 1, 2008

Les Valseuses (Going Places) has a breast-feeding scene on a train, although I'm pretty sure it's not the movie you're looking for. Excellent film anyway.
posted by SBMike at 10:02 AM on February 1, 2008

film versions that are old enough for me to have seen them in about 1990.

OK, this is a really vague extra long shot, but this has been bugging me all day, and today I suddenly remembered vividly (albeit possibly falsely) that I've seen this sequence, shot in black-and-white I think, as the opening sequence to a (non-black-and-white) BBC television drama set in modern-day continental Europe, probably France. The only such BBC drama I can find that matches those criteria plus the approximate date does not feel like it's the answer: it's Andrew Davies's darkly comic drama Ball-Trap on the Cote Sauvage. FWIW.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 11:33 AM on February 1, 2008

Definitely not "The Grapes of Wrath" since the movie version (with Henry Fonda) ends at an optimistic point about halfway through the book, way before that scene with Rose of Sharon.
posted by Rash at 2:16 PM on February 1, 2008

I received an email about this thread, which correctly identified the scene and even gives screen captures. It comes from 'Nice Town', a British miniseries starring Paul McGann. In the scene, Paul McGann is reading Maupassant's 'The Idyll', hence the voiceover. It's all filmed in sepia tones, which misled me into thinking it was from the 60s or 70s, when it is actually an old-fashioned look in a series from 1992. Thanks everyone for your ideas, and especially, thanks so much for emailing me, RB! [And I can't help thinking that game warden was on the right track, too.]
posted by beniamino at 4:13 AM on May 7, 2008