„Valse Triste is frankly and gracefully auto biographical of Conner's Kansas boyhood, here the period of the 1940's of his source materials parallels his own life experiences. A line of dark, wet cars files across a flooded road; a man and a boy ceremoniously burn leaves; a businessman at his desk turns to look over his shoulder to the photo of a locomotive behind him: a medium shot of an engineer in the cab of his locomotive: a shard of rock shears from a quarry wall and plunges into the water ..."