Did anyone catch this film, North Station (also known as Station Nord—a shot of the DVD) last fall? I have been hoping it would make the rounds again so I could catch the whole thing. It wasn't broadcast on any of the regular movie channels, but showed up on Film Festival or Family Room (I can't recall) on the VOOM HD channels that we get. I saw the end of it one time, the middle, the beginning...never all at once, which made it hard to get a handle on this very strange Quebec-made Christmas fantasy.
The story concerns young Samuel, who has been sent to live with his uncle at North Station, the last stop on the railway before the North Pole. Samuel's late uncle always prepared responses to children's letters to Santa, and this year Samuel and young Evelyne, whom Samuel is developing a crush on, decide to answer the letters themselves. However, they fall asleep in the middle of the task, but miraculously the letters are all answered and ready.
Samuel leaves to take the letters to the post office, but is caught in a blizzard and lays dying in the forest. Howie, a little African boy in Moorish dress captures Samuel's last breath in a bottle and takes Samuel to the North Pole, where he is revived and meets Santa Claus and also Bianca, the beautiful fairy who lives there (perhaps this is some French version of the Santa/St. Nicholas story?—Bianca doesn't appear to be "Mrs. Claus"). Samuel is captivated by the workings of Santa's workshop around him, so Santa makes him an offer: since Samuel's last breath is still trapped in the bottle, he can remain at the North Pole and become one of the helpers himself. But in return for staying alive, he must relinquish all his memories, including of Evelyne. Samuel does so and soon becomes a trusted helper. The bottle with his last breath is stored in a vault with those of others who Santa has rescued from death and who are now his helpers (you can tell all of Santa's helpers because they all have sparkly eyebrows, as Samuel is given).
Those are only a few of the strange things about this movie. Another odd thing involves the reindeer: when they draw Santa's sleigh they are actual, physical reindeer, but when they are off-duty, they revert into people. They are in fact convicts who are working off their debt to society and when they are not drawing the sleigh they are usually quarreling. The elves use them several times to make deliveries to North Station and you see them singing carols in the background, wearing unusual clothing.
Anyway, some time in the future, Santa receives a letter from a little girl whose grandmother is sick. She asks Santa for help—and it turns out "Grandmother" is a grown-up Evelyne.
There are more facets to the plot than this, but since I never saw it all in one go I never did figure out what was going on at certain points. There are a couple of segments where Santa plucks people from various points on earth and gives them courage before returning them to their home, and at the end Bianca grows weak and ill, but I never found out why. Another part of the story involves a plump, resentful elf named Cathy who was banished to work in the kitchens because she accidentally broke a couple of the bottles containing peoples' last breaths. I never found out if it was possibly Cathy who made Bianca ill or not.
Someday I hope to see it from beginning to end to see if I can get the plot straight! :-)
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