131 Closely Watched Trains

[jbeall]

Am I the only person on the board who adores this film? [...]

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

Count me among its fans as well. I've watched (closely!) numerous times, and shown it to a couple of my classes (and my students generally liked it, too).

There's a certain innocence to the eros in the film, especially the scene with the stamps, that contrasts beautifully with the cynicism brought on by their jobs and political situation. I also love the ironic use of slogans and propaganda posters that appear at various points (something Menzel reproduces to more savage effect in Larks on a String). He never lets you entirely forget the political context of either the story (WWII) or the film itself (Communism). At the hospital after Miloš's suicide attempt, for example, there's a Nazi, anti-Communist propaganda poster in which a claw emblazoned with hammer & sickle menaces the landscape, and the words (translating roughly) "if they catch you, you're dead." (The CC doesn't subtitle this poster.)

So while, on one hand, the protagonists' pursuits of their various amours is an individual (if not entirely committed) form of resistance against the Nazi occupation, the film's focus on these bumbling, horny, and decidedly un-class-conscious Czechs is a humanist riposte toward the tenets of socialist realism. And imho, it's funny as hell to boot.

[MichaelB]

So while, on one hand, the protagonists' pursuits of their various amours is an individual (if not entirely committed) form of resistance against the Nazi occupation, the film's focus on these bumbling, horny, and decidedly un-class-conscious Czechs is a humanist riposte toward the tenets of socialist realism. And imho, it's funny as hell to boot.

This is where Menzel and Hrabal work brilliantly together - I've generally found Menzel's non-Hrabal films (with the notable exception of Capricious Summer) to be a little too sweet-natured for my taste, but the Hrabal films are much tougher and more worldly-wise. And, as you say, they're exceptionally Czech - Kafka and Kundera may have a higher profile in the English-speaking world when it comes to Czech literature, but Czechs themselves have always claimed a far greater affinity with Hrabal and Jaroslav Hašek. Their prose is much more colloquial, their characters much more familiar - you can't pin Josef K. down to a single nationality, but there's no doubt at all where Hašek and Hrabal's creations hail from, or who you're more likely to run into if you wander into a random Czech pub.

Despite the age gap (Hrabal was born in 1914, Menzel in 1938 - a big difference when you consider the upheavals that happened between those dates), they seem to have got on very well personally as well as creatively. Hrabal was a big fan of Menzel's film adaptations and even said that Closely Watched Trains worked better on the screen than the page. (I can't judge this fairly, as I've only read the novel in English, and Hrabal's rambling prose style is apparently very hard to translate effectively.)

[movielocke]

A few months ago, discussing Grand Budapest Hotel (and Kundera, oddly) with a friend, he suddenly asked me, "have you ever seen Closely Watched Trains?" And so now I am getting around to watching it after he praised the film so highly. I can instantly see why it came to mind during a Wes Anderson/European literature conversation, it's got the whimsically cheery characters I'd also associate with Wes Anderson, and grimly cynical humor undergirding the tone. The lightly comic touches and darker tone were beautifully balanced, allowing the story to meander its way along before catching you off guard all of a sudden with the ending.

[roderigo]

A few months ago, discussing Grand Budapest Hotel (and Kundera, oddly) with a friend, he suddenly asked me, "have you ever seen Closely Watched Trains?" And so now I am getting around to watching it after he praised the film so highly. I can instantly see why it came to mind during a Wes Anderson/European literature conversation, it's got the whimsically cheery characters I'd also associate with Wes Anderson, and grimly cynical humor undergirding the tone. The lightly comic touches and darker tone were beautifully balanced, allowing the story to meander its way along before catching you off guard all of a sudden with the ending.

closely watched trains is one of my favorite movies, but never thought that it could be related to Wes Anderson's films. I definitely see some resemblance in the humor. I remember distinctly Milos speaking about some family members as if they were important in the world of the film, but as viewers know better (for instance, Milos' grandfather who was a hypnotist and tried to stop German tanks with his powers, only to get crushed over). I see some similarities with the treatment in Anderson's film, where some characters have a great side (sometimes imagined), and a very pathetic one.

[karmajuice]

It pairs especially well with The Grand Budapest Hotel since they feature a similar setting: central and eastern Europe around the time of a world war. Menzel's humor is much more earthy and folksy, and the film is far less referential and self-consciously layered than an Anderson film, but there's definitely a kinship in their characterization and their affection for the eccentric.

[Pepsi]

Menzel and Hrabal made in 2006 a film titled: I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále), which was based on Hrabal's novel from 1971. The similarities with GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL are striking! However Wes Anderson is such a talent, that it doesn't matter. They both stand alone!

From IMDb:

A look at the glamorous life at an old-world Prague hotel. In flashbacks, he tells his story: he's a small, clever and quick-witted young man, stubbornly naïve, a vendor at a train station. Thanks to a patron, he becomes a waiter at upscale hotels and restaurants. We see him discover how the wealthy tick and how to please women. He strives to be a millionaire with his own hotel. Before the war, he meets Líza, a German woman in Prague.

There's a good Australian DVD available!

[TMDaines]

The film is also currently on Mubi in the UK.

[admira]

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