“A silent film, from its conception to the final result, a strong, powerful structure, that deals brutal blows. A film that wakes you up and whips you. It’s about time. (…) Blue Express, the title, could cause some confusion. One imagines a train gliding alongside the brilliant, idyllic sea: moving smoothly and rapidly at the service of an élite. Why not call it the Yellow Express, to better give the sense of a constant progression, like a river that pulls along anything it can rip from the banks, mud, trash…(…) Bronenosets Potemkin in 1925, Potomok Tchinguiz-Khana in 1928, Golubòi eksprèss in 1930. Add to these peaks a few quality social dramas, a few theorems in dramatic contexts, a few documentaries – more drama than love stories, and there you have Russian cinema today. This silent cycle began at sea and ends within the earth like a silent assault.

Symbols, symbols. Everything is symbolic. But without insisting too much. There is nothing here that reminds us of the hurricane at the end of Potomok Tchinguiz-Khana. An intense screenplay supported by first rate performances. One may note the lack of exteriors. Russians are more at ease when they show sand, wind, the steppes, rather than the carriages of an international company’s wagon-lits. Despite the intelligently biased screenplay (which doesn’t fool anyone), Blue Express arrives at the beginning of the winter like a tonic, regenerating us, it’s just what we need in order to fully appreciate the ‘great stories’”.

Claude Martin, “Close up”, Paris, dicembre 1930