Closely Watched Trains

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Closely Watched Trains
Directed by	Jiří Menzel
Produced by	Zdeněk Oves
Written by	Novel: Bohumil Hrabal Screenwriter: Jiří Menzel
Starring	Václav Neckář Jitka Bendová Josef Somr Vlastimil Brodský Vladimír Valenta
Music by	Jiří Šust
Cinematography	Jaromír Šofr
Editing by	Jiřina Lukešová
Distributed by	Ústřední půjčovna filmů
Release date(s)	November 18, 1966 October 15, 1967
Running time	92 min.
Country	Czechoslovakia
Language	Czech German
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Ostře sledované vlaky is a 1966 Czechoslovakian film directed by Jiří Menzel. It is released as Closely Watched Trains in North America and Closely Observed Trains in the UK. It was filmed in Barrandov Studios, Prague.

The film is based on a story by Bohumil Hrabal. It is a coming-of-age story about a boy working at a train station in German-occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II.

It is also one of several films based on writings of the novelist and short story writer Bohumil Hrabal (1914-1997), and also with his close collaboration. Menzel and Hrabal are a rare example of how congenial artists of the same sensibility achieve the same effects in different genres.

As the blurb of the Criterion Collection DVD writes, the hero of the novel, a young railway station apprentice, "Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him ... embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustation, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot."

The film is a black comedy, now tender, now savage, a masterpiece of irony and observation. But as such it also explores the strategies of survival for the everyday person during the Nazi occupation of WW II, in time of a violent and repressive dictatorship. This message was brought home so obviously for the Communists that Closely Watched Trains was not allowed to be shown in Czechoslovakia for many years after the Soviet invasion of 1968, and Menzel was not allowed to make a new film for seven years.

[edit] Awards

The film won several international awards:

• The 1967 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
• The 1969 BAFTA Awards for Best Film and Best Soundtrack
• The Grand Prize at the 1966 Mannheim-Heidelberg International Filmfestival
• A nomination for the 1969 DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures
• A nomination for the 1968 Golden Globe for Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film

[edit] External links

• Closely Watched Trains at the Internet Movie Database
• Criterion Collection essay by Richard Schickel

Awards
Preceded by A Man and a Woman	Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 1967	Succeeded by War and Peace
Preceded by A Man and a Woman	Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film 1968	Succeeded by War and Peace