Closely Watched Trains (1966)
History located in the village of Kostomolaty ficitio , Czechoslovakia, in late 1944. Following in the footsteps of his father, the young Czech Milos Harma, descended from a long line of losers, he entered the railway company to work as a switchman in the village station. While at the station followed a series of bizarre situations, and in front of retreating German forces, Milos start to be frustrated in his sexual awakening to find that suffer premature ejaculation. At the same time, local resistance to plans to blow up a German military train on its way through the people, which will require the assistance of Milos.
Closely Watched Trains was the debut of Czech filmmaker Jirí Menzel , with a script based on the novel by writer Bohumil Hrabal , whose adaptation Menzel himself worked in conjunction with author of the book. Shooting the film took place in stages in the Czech Republic itself, after its release and reached a remarkable success business in their country, even to win the Oscar for best foreign film in the 1967 edition of the awards. Subsequently, however, irreverent and sardonic tone of the film was considered too transgressive Menzel to communist orthodoxy of the time, so that after the events of the Prague Spring in 1968, the film was banned in Czechoslovakia.
Entering analyze the film, I must say that despite this film is considered one of the titles called "cult" I personally ended up satisfied. The narrative provides a unique mix of comedy between manners and surreal, drama and war materials, seasoned with a slight drop of eroticism. A rather unusual mix that I see on screen does not gel. And it has a lot to do with the fact that different lines of argument that the story is presented (particularly concerning the carnal awakening of the protagonist) overlap one another without much sense, so it gives the impression that the film lacks a defined structure. And this despite the presence of some well resolved satirical sequences and good performances from key stakeholders. However, as a whole, I find that the dramatic part of the story does not stop to move, and the comedy lacks a greater degree of coherence and humor to make the audience laugh. And the truth is that there are plenty of supposedly comic scenes that are hard to find grace.
the end, the whole story is presented as a collection rather disjointed, moments of satire settled unevenly interspersed with episodes about the sexual maturation of the protagonist. Therefore, Closely Watched Trains seems a typical product called Arthouse cinema, that the average viewer will probably excite or cold. In my case, of course I found more of the latter than the former. An original story, which offers some inspired comic timing, but little else.
Rating: 5.5 / 10
