476. Ostre sledovane vlaky/Closely Watched Trains (1967)

Running Time: 92 minutes
Directed By: Jiri Menzel
Written By: Jiri Menzel, from novel by Bohumil Hrabal
Main Cast: Vaclav Neckar, Vlastimil Brodsky, Jitka Bendova, Josef Somr, Vladimir Valenta
Click here to view the trailer

CZECH NEW WAVE

This will actually be the first of, at least two (maybe three), posts today. I received this and "The House is Black" (with a running time of 22 minutes) in the mail today from Netflix and plan to get them both out of the way in one, quick swoop. As for "Closely Watched Trains" - I watched it closely, but wasn't that impressed.

Milos Hrma (Neckar) is a young boy, on the cusp of manhood who's life goal is to get through life without having to do too much manual labor. When the film starts we hear about Milos' family history and how all the men of his family have, pretty much, been loafers. Milos has just landed a job as a train dispatcher, where his duties will be to stand on a train platform and basically do nothing. Milos is a virgin, however he wants to change this and his eyes are on Masa (Bendova), a young, female train conductor. His co-worker Hubicka (Somr) tries to give him a little coaching in the ways of wooing a woman, as Hubicka seems to be in a constant state of arousal, grabbing onto any women who gives him a second look. When Milos finally gets Masa alone, with intentions of making love to her, he does what many virgins do and finishes in a premature state (if you know what I mean). This makes Milos feel like less of a man and he'd rather not be a man than feel like half of one, so he proceeds to commit suicide, but is saved at the last minute by a passerby. When Milos consults with a doctor, he is informed that premature ejaculation is quite normal and that he should find an older, more experienced woman to "teach" him. Meanwhile, all of this is happening in the midst of the Nazi occupation and wouldn't you know it, young Milos gets dragged into that mess as well.

I must admit, I had really high hopes for this one. I'm not sure why I held such high hopes - maybe because my previous encounter with Czech cinema ("The Shop on Main Street") was such a fantastic one. In the end, however, I just had a really hard time getting a grasp on this one and ultimately I'm left not quite knowing what to make of it. Is it a comedy? Is it a tragedy? or is it an odd mixture of both? Actually it's the latter and the mixture of comedy and tragedy here just didn't work for me as well as it could have. I loved nearly everything about "Closely Watched Trains", except that when it came to the actual story there wasn't much substance there. I loved the setting, because for some reason the idea of a movie set at a train station during the Nazi occupation just really appeals to me. I loved the photography - the snow falling against the tree covered hills of Czechoslovakia was, indeed, a sight for sore eyes. I even really liked the characters to an extent. The characters, especially Milos, didn't even resemble the type of character you'd find in a Czech New Wave film. He more resembled the type of character you'd find in modern, American cinema, possibly in the confines of a Wes Anderson film.

However, even though I liked the basic foundation for the characters, I just really had a hard time getting a grasp on them and ultimately they were merely a contributing factor for my mediocre feeling on this film. Also, the plot is just very dry and in the end, I found myself trying to sum up the events of the film and found myself not coming up with very much. The actions of the characters are portrayed in such a subtle manner that nothing really ever feels like it happened. Even when Milos attempts suicide, it just doesn't have the feeling that a film should have when it's main character is about to off himself. It's just as if we go from this to that to suicide to this to that and there's really no feeling that important events are happening. The bottom line is that "Closely Watched Trains" definitely gets points for building a good atmosphere and building it in a intriguing setting. However, the plot falls very short and the characters, while the intentions were good, just don't really hold up in the end.

RATING: 5.5/10 I was gonna' go '6', but that's just a smidgen too high, in my opinion. I'll keep this one in the forefront of my mind and we'll revisit it at RECAP time.

MOVIES WATCHED: 367
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 634

December 14, 2011 4:02pm