Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, 1956-present
Year 12: Czech Film
Jiri Menzel’s Closely Watched Trains, the winner the 1967 Oscar Award for Best Foreign-Language Picture, is a lyrical tragicomedy about the attempts of a naive apprentice train-dispatcher at sexual initiation.
Our Grade: A (*****)
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Theatrical release poster
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The (anti) hero of this wry yet tender Czech film is a shy, scared youngster who comes from a long line of patsies and fools.
The first film to be directed by Jiri Menzel is based on the well-known ironic novel by Bohumil Hrabal, who collaborated with Menzel on the scenario. Born in 1914, Hrabal, one of the most popular Czech writers, was older than Menzel by 24 years, but he reportedly liked the film better than his novel.
Set during the German Occupation, most of the narrative takes place at a village railway station.
Miloš Hrma, who speaks with misplaced pride of his family of misfits, is a newly trained station guard. He admires his new uniform, and he looks forward, just like his lazy and now-retired railwayman father, to avoiding any work.
The pompous stationmaster is an enthusiastic pigeon-breeder with a kind wife, but he is envious of the train dispatcher Hubička’s success with women.
Miloš holds a platonic love for the pretty young conductor Máša. However, when the experienced Hubička presses for details of Miloš’ bond with the girl, he realizes that Miloš is still a virgin.
Things change, when the idyllic life of the railway station becomes disturbed by the arrival of the councillor Zedníček, a Nazi collaborator.
At her initiative, Máša spends the night with Miloš, but he ejaculates prematurely before achieving penetration and then is unable to perform. The next day, the embarrassed lad attempts suicide.
He is saved, however, and the doctor explains that “ejaculatio praecox” is normal at Miloš’s age. The doctor suggests to Miloš to “think of something else” (like interest in football), and to seek help from a more experienced woman.
During the nightshift, Hubička flirts with the young telegraphist Zdenička, and imprints her thighs with the office’s rubber stamps. Her mother sees the stamps and complains to Hubička’s superiors, and the ensuing scandal aborts the stationmaster’s ambition to be promoted to inspector.
Meanwhile, the Germans and their collaborators are anxious since their trains are being attacked by the partisans. A glamorous Resistance agent (a circus artist in peacetime), code-named Viktoria Freie, delivers a time bomb to Hubička for blowing up large ammunition train. At Hubička’s request, the “experienced” Viktoria also helps Miloš to resolve his sexual problem.
At the crucial moment when the ammunition train is approaching, Hubička is caught up in a farcical disciplinary hearing over his rubber-stamping of Zdenička’s backside.
In Hubička’s place, Miloš, liberated by his experience with Viktoria from his former passivity, takes the time bomb and drops it from a gantry that extends above the tracks, onto the train. A machine-gunner, spotting Miloš, sprays him with bullets, and his body falls onto the train.
With the Nazi collaborator Zedníček winding up the disciplinary hearing, dismissing the Czech people as “nothing but laughing hyenas,” the implicit retort to his jibe comes in a series of explosions that destroys the train. Hubička and the other railwaymen are laughing, expressing their joy at the blow to the Nazi occupiers.
In the end, the wistful Máša has to pick up Miloš’s uniform cap, hurled across the station by the blast.
Closely Watched Trains shows deeply human concern and compassion for its characters, without ever judging them.
A subtly sophisticated, elliptical folk tale, the movie contains some quirky and zany moments. The sequence in which an assistant stationmaster rubber-stamps a female telegrapher, and its aftermath, is particularly funny.
Marking a turning point in history of Czech cinema, Closely Watched Trains could not have been made after the Soviet invasion of August 21, 1968, which ended the liberal climate that had prevailed in Czech arts and letters in the 1960s.
Menzel not only co-wrote and directed, but also played in the movie the cameo role of the doctor. Menzel took on the cameo only at the last minute, after the actor originally cast failed to show up.
For the lead, he tested 15 non-professional actors, before the wife of the poet Ladislav Fikar suggested pop singer Vaclav Neckar.
Locations shooting took place in and around the station building in Lodenice.
Oscar Context:
In 1967, the other Oscar nominees for the Best Foreign Film Language were El Amor Brujo from Spain; I Even Met Happy Gypsies from Yugoslavia; Live for Life from France; and Portrait from Chieko from Japan.
About Jiri Menzel
Menzel and Hrabal later collaborated on the script of the long-banned Larks on a String, which was shot in 1969, but not released until 1990.
In 1974, in a major turn of events, Menzel recanted his political beliefs, which enabled him to work. However, in 1989, he resumed in earnest his initial political activism.
Among Menzel’s popular movies are:
Capricious Summer (1968), Larks on a String (1969), Those Wonderful Men with a Crank (1978), and the international hit My Sweet Little Village (1986).
Credits:
Title ( Czechoslovakia): Ostre Sledovane Vlaky
Directed by Jiří Menzel
Produced by Zdeněk Oves
Screenplay by Jiří Menzel, based on Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal
Music by Jiří Šust
Cinematography Jaromír Šofr
Edited by Jiřina Lukešová
Production company: Barrandov Studios, Ceskoslovensky Film
Distributed by Ústřední půjčovna filmů
Release date: November 18, 1966
Running Time: 89 minutes
