131 Closely Watched Trains

[Martha]

Closely Watched Trains



At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher's apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot. Wry and tender, Academy Awardâ„¢-winning Closely Watched Trains is a masterpiece of human observation and one of the best-loved films of the Czech New Wave.

Special Features

- New digital transfer
- U.S. theatrical trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation

Criterionforum.org user rating averages

Feature currently disabled

[Matt]

Very little care went into this release, it seems. There are numerous typos in the subtitles and the same guy is thanked twice in the acknowledgements. The film itself, for me, is just "meh." After an excellent and bitterly funny first 30 minutes, it peters out into not much of anything.

[skuhn8]

It is definitely an Old World exercise in cynicism and comedy. Did you like The Shop on Main Street? -- I just watched SoMS last night again and find these two films very similar, besides their obvious origin. In these parts Closely Watched Trains is considered a masterpiece, the only Czech New Wave film available here on DVD and one of the first films to be put on DVD as a matter of fact....dubbed in Hungarian of course. IMO SoMS is far superior, but both excellent films.

Did you really approach this as a comedy? Films like this and Shop on Main Street and Hungary's The Witness are explorations in working out their history and even to some extent playing out their contemporary situation, however covertly. Both of the Czech movies explore their nation's dubious alliance, cooperation, and resistance to the Germans. And made at a time when a similar situation was occuring with the Soviets. This needs to be kept in mind. Sadly Criterion has abstained from providing any assistance to the viewer in approaching Central European cinema. Propaganda commercials are easily obtained, and valuable in comparing the various messages pushed at the populace of the time (on my Witness DVD I have a serious of fifties prop pieces that give some background to the BS of the time portrayed in the film).

All three films have a hapless fool hero who stands as the passive nation being pulled by the outside forces of history. No longer able to remain passive, active participation leads to folly or ultimate downfall. Tragic in the Czech films, comedic in the Hungarian.

I'd strongly recommend watching Shop on Main Street and then rewatching Closely Watched Trains with an eye on the similarities between the "heros".

[ben d banana]

Excellent, I get to disagree with both of you.

Whereas Matt felt the movie fell short after its opening half hour, for me its bleak humor and power was sustained throughout. The Shop On Main Street however, left me underwhelmed. While it grew on me as it went along, my expectations, heightened by Closely Watched Trains for one, were never met. Admittedly this is probably due to my weakness in appreciating much Italian cinema, which is what I was reminded of by The Shop On Main Street, with its abundance of earnestness and such that leaves me cold while attempting to pull on my heartstrings.

Ugh, I'm unable to offer anything beyond my personal (emotional) reaction in my memory. Where's Henrik to heap scorn upon me? At least I'm at one with the people of the former Soviet Bloc.

[Matt]

I understood the allegorical nature of the hero (Milos), but it's simply the movie itself that underwhelmed me. I'm talking about the basic way it plays out from scene to scene. Really, I kept comparing it to Il Posto which, I don't think, has any allegorical pretense, but which simply works better for me as a coming of age story. I thought much of the film (after the excellent Wilder-esque first half-hour) was amusing, but the last hour just didn't amuse me as much. And, no, I didn't expect it to be a rollicking comedy, but the whole obsession with Milos' premature ejaculation problem wore thin for me pretty quickly.

Though this is my first Czech new wave film, I did do a little reading beforehand (Criterion at least provided this) so I didn't come at the film with a total lack of knowledge. I think I fared a little bit better than the first time I attempted to watch the movie, thinking it was a thriller in the vein of Frankenheimer's The Train.

I'll be watching The Shop on Main Street next and then Loves of a Blonde and Daisies.

[tryavna]

Frankly, I was underwhelmed by this movie, too. It's definitely not bad, but it just seems slightly overrated to me -- based on some of the glowing reviews I'd read about the film. I'm not terribly familiar with the Czech New Wave, and this has not put me off of Czech films by any means. But I agree that some better contextualization from Criterion might have been helpful.

Still, I just think that the film's approach to humor, as well as its blending that humor with a grimmer and more cynical sense of reality, was unconvincing. As Matt says, the whole premature ejaculation running gag "wore thin ... pretty quickly." And I felt that the downbeat ending was completely unnecessary; it gave the impression of a director straining a bit to achieve poignancy. The director whose work I kept comparing this film to in my mind as I watched it was Truffaut, and I really don't think Menzel comes close to Truffaut's subtlety or skill at handling comical situations.

[skuhn8]

Disconcerting. Again and again, the words comical and comedy. So long as you approach it as a comedy, as if the Czech New Wave movement will provide a bag of gags...it will only result in failure. This isn't Caddyshack. Czech. Prague. Franz Kafka. Soderbergh got it on the nose with his homage to Franz. It isn't the moments, the lines, the moment by moment situations that provide the comedy. It is the overall situation: "Look at the pickle we find ourselves in NOW." Again and again, history kicks a people: sadly the same people often as not. You approach Closely Watched Trains as a comedy that suddenly and discontertedly ends in tragedy. Snap out of it! It's a tragedy that pulls you along by the nose--or grabs you by the cock, to follow the film's metaphor--to the film's inevitable conclusion: individually, our exertions, our struggles, our endeavors are folly; we're a people moved by movements of masses, whether beauracracies or fascists or communists.

Sexual impotence; political impotence--one can go on chipping away metaphors but it comes down to this: what the French New Wave tried to do for French cinema the Czech New Wave tried to do for the Czech nation: regain integrity in the face of utter humiliation. Cinema was pretty much the only way these people could reach out to the outside world and give a shout-out. Literature? A handful of books may be translated, a couple actually read. But when a film gets an acadamy award for Best Foreign Film, it's going to call attention to the minds behind the camera, behind the script, behind the thought. This isnt' comedy; it's a crusade.

[Czech partisans killed Heydrich, one of the architects of the Holocaust. In return the nazis murdered some 400 civilians as direct retribution: if I recall correctly, mostly children. Heydrich was an architect of destruction; his work was already done essentially. Those deaths in retribution were needless.]

[Matt]

Well, all the exhortations and proselytizing won't make me like it any better. It fails as comedy AND as tragedy, in my opinion. And that's wise to remember. I'm just stating my opinion. You're free to think the movie is the hottest slice of celluloid ever. I'm just not going to agree.

[skuhn8]

Actually, I don't like it very much. Just felt like climbing the box.

But really, and backpedaling (on my part) aside, isn't your response kind of a "I'll just take my ball away, then" . We're discussing a work of art, whether a painting, a book, a deuchamps urinal; it isnt' at all, not at all, about your opinion or whether I can make you agree. If I had avoided--say--Japanese cinema as long as you have avoided Czech, and then when someone climbed the soapbox in defense of Tokyo Story (which I can't stand) I certainly wouldn't cry foul. However it's worded, if someone takes the time of offering at least some kind of insight, however valid or invalid you may find it in your present film-viewing condition, at least give it a grain of thought. You were one of two posters who said the film fell short. I'm just coming along and saying "Hey, I don't think you are approaching at it's best slope". It's like anticipating a movie based on the friggin' trailer; hit or miss.

Interestingly there seems to be very little discussion or argument about Criterion releases, and more on Old and New films. The CC section is mostly "Can't wait for this one" followed by "Wow. Great release." Perhaps that is why my post pissed you off? Or is it really that preachy? Other than "Snap out of it!" which granted was excessive, I think I was conveying my appreciation for the movement, not so much my condemnation of the above criticisms. Or maybe the Caddyshack think...hmmm....[stops thinking out loud....and then stops thinking...and then stops typing...finally....followed by Matt's nemesis: ellipses]

smile. As Hitchcock said: "It's only a movie."

[Matt]

I don't think my response was childish in the least. It's not like I'm some kind of amateur when it comes to watching films, so I resent being treated as if I'm a nincompoop who expects every film to be Caddyshack (which I don't even like or find funny). I read about the Czech new wave before I watched the film, I read Richard Schickel's essay (typical Schickel self-absorption), I gave the film my full attention, and gave it careful thought afterwards. I just didn't like it all that much.

When I say that you won't make me agree with you, I'm not saying that I refuse to listen to why you think the film is good or worthwhile (but I would rather you not phrase it in terms of why I'm wrong in not liking it). I'm simply saying that I know what kind of films I like, that this isn't one of them, and that I'm not going to be argued into thinking I like it. Your response didn't piss me off at all, but I did think it was misguided and slightly pedantic. I understand that this is an "important" film, particularly for Czechs, and I can appreciate that. But all the importance in the world won't make me like it any better.

But perhaps it puts everything into context when I say I also find Godard insufferable, Fellini tiresome (with the exception of 8 1/2), Kurosawa boring, Truffaut amateurish, Cassavetes shrill, Fritz Lang tedious (with the exception of Metropolis), and Preston Sturges largely unfunny. I'm just hard to please.

[zedz]

While we're at the annual Curmudgeons 'R' Us firesale, I'll agree with you on Fellini, and am similarly underwhelmed by Truffaut (bland) and Godard (chronically patchy). However, I find Metropolis excruciatingly tedious, probably my least favourite Lang.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of Czech New Wave cinema, and am continually frustrated by how hard it is to see. That said, I don't think Closely Watched Trains or The Shop on Main Street are particularly great examples. I find Menzel's Larks on a String or Forman's Loves of a Blonde far more impressive works in a similar vein, and there are a lot of much more original and unusual films out there (in the ether, not the marketplace) by lesser known directors.

Good luck with Daisies, Matt, but given your experience with Godard I suspect you'll have a better time with Loves of a Blonde.

[tryavna]

This is turning into a weird thread. Maybe we should start up a thread elsewhere dedicated to all the "great" directors we're supposed to admire but personally detest....

Anyway, if this movie isn't meant to be viewed as a comedy, then I guess I just don't get it. I don't mean to say that I judge every comedy by the standard of Caddyshack. (Exactly where you get that, skuhn8, I have no idea. As I said in my earlier post, the director whose work this most reminded me of was Truffaut, who successfully blends humor and pathos IMO.) But I'm just not sure how else to approach a movie that's basically about a teenage boy trying to loose his virginity. I mean, it's definitely not Porky's or The Last American Virgin, but it comes awfully close in theme/content, if not level of crudity.

But setting aside all that, even if you were to convince me that it's not a comedy (Kafka = Czech, ergo all Czech writers/directors = humorless -- a fairly questionable form of evidence at best), then I still say that this movie feels extremely contrived and unconvincing.

It is interesting that you bring up the specter of Reinhard Heydrich and the Nazi destruction of Lidice in retaliation of his assassination. How that ties into your reasoning here escapes me. But the fact that Menzel makes light of that Nazi occupation (or all but overlooks it up until the very end, when he tacks it on amateurishly) makes me dislike this movie even more.

So, basically, I have to agree with Matt once again. It's scary the number of people on this board I'm in total agreement with lately!

[godardslave]

I'm just hard to please.

Thats something i agree with.

Note: at no point in the above statment did i make a subjective judgement on whether, in my opinion, the quality of being "hard to please" is a good or a bad thing.

I also find Godard insufferable

have you watched contempt?

[Narshty]

I saw Closely Watched Trains once a couple of years ago and thought it was a little disjointed but overall loved it (ironically, it was after the suicide attempt that it really kicked into high gear for me and is one of the few endings to genuinely shock me).

But it's getting so here it's almost not worth stating one's disappointment in a film without people seemingly taking offence at the difference of opinion and quoting reams of evidence why the dissenting voices have no clue what they're on about.

If a movie doesn't work when I'm sitting there watching it, it doesn't work a movie. Historical document, film history stepping stone, essay/dissection on a given subject, possibly, but as an engaging piece of filmed entertainment, no. I know a number here find this approach outrageous, as well as a lack of willingness to rewatch every disagreeable movie from any number of proposed angles until a tolerable perspective is found, but there are too many other unseen movies that might hit the spot in the meantime to bother.

[ben d banana]

I enjoyed Il Posto as it felt more like a Czech new wave film (rough, earnest, funny, actually touching) than the typically overreaching attempts at heartstring pulling and dull humor of much, to my mind, overhyped Italian cinema.

I'm in full agreement w/ Narshty's stance, low brow or not. Life is way too short.

[Andre Jurieu]

Maybe we should start up a thread elsewhere dedicated to all the "great" directors we're supposed to admire but personally detest....

Oh God no! We've already been down that path when someone (was it Jaime C?) made the "Overrated" thread a few forums ago and that ended in chaos. If we were ever going to create that thread it would just turn to the usual hit-and-run posts without any real logic or reasoning behind the criticism, because it's easy, and therefore rampant, on the internet. Let's face facts (while I completely generalize the characteristics of the forum's population), this is a forum that is occupied by snobbish cinema elitists and DVD fan-boy addicts (and you can lump me in either group if you want). Hence, in the end, this proposed thread will just have comments like "Dreyer and Tarkovsky both suck", "I don't think Ozu is all that great", "Bresson is boring", "Godard is a retard", "Kurosawa fans couldn't pass high school", "Linklater has no concept of cinematic language", or "only morons like Tarantino and Soderbergh". In the end, the "Overrated" thread was locked because no one was willing to back up their opinions or concede that they may have approached a film/director's work with a narrow-minded or biased viewpoint. Some people just don't enjoy certain films, styles, or filmmaking techniques. They aren't "wrong" for not liking something. It's just taste and perspective. It's difficult to change a perspective as well, especially when the medium is visual and relies upon the actual experience of viewing the work. Words and logic can help persuade thought, but they aren't all that powerful in comparison. Besides, how often do people change their minds when the counter-argument is "you're an idiot".

By the way, if this thread turns into Matt vs. people who are slaves to Godard, I predict the fastest blood-bath in the history of the internet.

[flambeur]

I also find Godard insufferable

At a boy Matt! I almost agree with all your observations.

Contempt is defined in my dictionary as insufferable as well.

Agree to disagree boys and girls.

[Michael Kerpan]

Kafka = Czech, ergo all Czech writers/directors = humorless -- a fairly questionable form of evidence at best

Glad you added the last proviso. Kafka is anything but humorless -- the humor might be utterly poker-faced (and ultimately scary) but it is there in great abundance.

[Penny Dreadful]

Disconcerting. Again and again, the words comical and comedy. So long as you approach it as a comedy, as if the Czech New Wave movement will provide a bag of gags...it will only result in failure. This isn't Caddyshack. Czech. Prague. Franz Kafka. Soderbergh got it on the nose with his homage to Franz. It isn't the moments, the lines, the moment by moment situations that provide the comedy. It is the overall situation: "Look at the pickle we find ourselves in NOW." Again and again, history kicks a people: sadly the same people often as not. You approach Closely Watched Trains as a comedy that suddenly and discontertedly ends in tragedy. Snap out of it! It's a tragedy that pulls you along by the nose--or grabs you by the cock, to follow the film's metaphor--to the film's inevitable conclusion: individually, our exertions, our struggles, our endeavors are folly; we're a people moved by movements of masses, whether beauracracies or fascists or communists.

All three films have a hapless fool hero who stands as the passive nation being pulled by the outside forces of history. No longer able to remain passive, active participation leads to folly or ultimate downfall. Tragic in the Czech films, comedic in the Hungarian.

I've actually found the opposite to be true. Most of the Hungarian movies of that era are far more sincere and far less ironic than their Czech counterparts. Compare a movie like Apa to Closely Watched Trains. Both deal with the subject of Nazi occupation 20 years after the fact, but the Hungarian film is racked with angst and national guilt while the Czech film attacks its role in the war with dark humor.

The Czech film industry of the Cold War gave us Milos Forman, Svankmeyer, and Chytilova--hardly dour, tragic directors. Hungary gave us Szabo.

Also, according to my Eastern-European acquaintances, the Czechs are stereotypically perceived to be a comedic lot with the tendency to confront tragedy with jokes, while the Hungarian national character is reserved, earnest and somewhat depressive.

[skuhn8]

I'd have to agree on the Hungarian assessment. My conclusion was specific to only the three films mentioned in my post. As far as I can tell A Tanu (The Witness) is a bit of an anomaly in Hungary insofar as it's of the laugh out loud variety, yet stands as it's most oft-quoted film. "The Hungarian Orange": I've never seen the folly of socialism so concisely encapsulated as in this scene--everyone in Hungary knows what that means, and ironic that the orange has become a mini topic in this thread.

Haven't seen Apa, but just finished Laszlo Ranody's Be Good Unto Death from 1960 (the dvd has a '56 documentary on the author Zsigmond Moricz by Miklos Jancso) and that is a pretty good representation of Hungarian desperation, a more typical contrast to Czech films of the era which do seem to scoff at the tragedies they wade through.

Would love to start a thread on Hungarian cinema as this is an area not yet tapped by many world cinema enthusiasts, but I don't think there's too much interest.

[Murdoch]

This is playing at the Dryden Theatre in Rochester, NY on December 9th. Anyone in the area should check it out, I'd really like to see it, but I guess I'll have to wait due to finals.

[foofighters7]

just got around to watching this film.

I read the back N' forth earlier in the thread, and although I certainly wouldnt herald it as 'masterpiece', a term that seems to find itself on pretty much every CC title in someones regard, I did find it's topics interesting and felt that it COULD have been a masterpiece given a bit better dialogue, and either less editing with more story or more editing trimming down a bit. (I know its only 93 minutes long)

The first 20 minutes or so were entertaining in an often 'laugh out loud way' for me. The start of the film even gave me a thought that Wes Anderson could perhaps have seen and appreciated this film. It may be just me but the start of the film felt like one of Anderson's famous montages when introducing characters.

Spoiler

I found it somewhat ironic that Milos trys to kill himself because of his "lack of beng an man" for the girl he liked who he couldnt have sex with then actually gets killed for the girl he has sex with. He walks past his girlfriend en route to do something basically for this other woman and dies doing it.

On the whole I thought it was good, not great, not something I would tell everyone they need to see but good nonetheless.

[karmajuice]

Am I the only person on the board who adores this film? I revisited it tonight with my sister and found it just as charming and sincere this time around, and probably even funnier. The first half of the film sets the tone but the second half is a riot, because the jokes only build and become more resonant; my sister and I were both cracking up. Certainly the humor is dark and the film has a cynical streak, but this is balanced by a humanist warmth springing from the sex. Much of the humor stems from the sexuality in the film, but it's a gentler humor and one which remains genuine -- a rare feat with sex jokes. I don't know, every moment hits the right notes for me. The relaxed pace, the editing, the careful use of sound, the slightly off-putting characterizations. It's a visually subdued film, but I think it's brilliantly shot and intensely cinematic. The shots with the passing trains never fail to catch my breath. It is among the films I deeply cherish and it serves as an inspiration to me.

I just felt like I had to stick up for the film. It wasn't getting the love it deserves here.

[knives]

The previous incarnations of the forum probably had tones of stuff written. From appearances I feel confident saying it's one of the more loved titles in the collection here.

[MichaelB]

Am I the only person on the board who adores this film? I revisited it tonight with my sister and found it just as charming and sincere this time around, and probably even funnier. The first half of the film sets the tone but the second half is a riot, because the jokes only build and become more resonant; my sister and I were both cracking up. Certainly the humor is dark and the film has a cynical streak, but this is balanced by a humanist warmth springing from the sex. Much of the humor stems from the sexuality in the film, but it's a gentler humor and one which remains genuine -- a rare feat with sex jokes. I don't know, every moment hits the right notes for me. The relaxed pace, the editing, the careful use of sound, the slightly off-putting characterizations. It's a visually subdued film, but I think it's brilliantly shot and intensely cinematic. The shots with the passing trains never fail to catch my breath. It is among the films I deeply cherish and it serves as an inspiration to me.

If that's your first Jiří Menzel Bohumil Hrabal adaptation, you'll be delighted to know that there are five more, and they all have a very similar sensibility: Pearls of the Deep (1965), Larks on a String (1969), Cutting It Short (1980), Snowdrop Festival (1983) and I Served the King of England (2006).

They're all available on English-subtitled DVD (albeit on Czech labels in two cases, and I'd recommend the Czech edition of Pearls of the Deep over the Facets abomination - you can get subtitles here).