Trans-Europ-Express

Trans-Europ-Express is a 1966 black-and-white French-Belgian co-production made by Alain Robbe-Grillet from his own screenplay. Counted among experimental cinema, it runs about 94 minutes and is spoken in French and Dutch. It takes its name from the Trans Europ Express, the international rail network that then linked European cities. It was released in France in 1967 and reached German-speaking cinemas on June 29, 1967. The director also appears in the film.

The structure has two layers. In the frame story, a film crew devises a plot for a new film on a train to Antwerp. Their invention becomes a film within the film, following Elias, a novice smuggler carrying cocaine from Paris to Antwerp, and a prostitute. The story does not stay within its authors' outline: the creators can only partly steer events, while the characters sometimes go their own way. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Marie-France Pisier play both the film's characters and themselves, often slipping between the two unnoticed. Catherine Robbe-Grillet, Charles Millot, Christian Barbier and Daniel Emilfork are also in the cast.

The film weaves together experimental cinema, crime fiction, thriller, black comedy and melodrama, with elements of eroticism, bondage imagery, paradox and prank.