Closely Watched Trains

Closely Watched Trains (1966)

Ostře sledované vlaky

All it takes to make a man of a boy is a woman.

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.

Date of release
1966-11-18
TMDB
7.2 / 10 (282)
Runtime
1h 33m
Genres
Comedy, Drama, War
Director
Jiří Menzel

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $1.5M
  • Based on: Closely Watched Trains
  • Filmed in: Loděnice
  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 2. Including: Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

Closely Watched Trains is a 1966 Czechoslovak coming-of-age comedy film. Directed by Jiří Menzel, it is one of the best-known films of the Czechoslovak New Wave. It was released in the United Kingdom as Closely Observed Trains. It is a story about a young man working at a train station in German-occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II. The film is based on a 1965 novella by Bohumil Hrabal. It was produced by Barrandov Studios and filmed on location in Central Bohemia. Released outside Czechoslovakia during 1967, it received widespread acclaim and won the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 40th Academy Awards in 1968.

Production

The film is based on a 1965 novella of the same name by the noted Czech author Bohumil Hrabal, whose work Jiří Menzel had previously adapted to make The Death of Mr. Balthazar, his segment of the anthology film of Hrabal stories Pearls of the Deep (1965).

Menzel's first choice for the lead role of Miloš was Vladimír Pucholt, but he was occupied filming Jiří Krejčík's Svatba jako řemen. Menzel considered playing the role himself, but he concluded that, at almost 28, he was too old. Fifteen non-professional actors were then tested before the wife of Ladislav Fikar (a poet and publisher) came up with the suggestion of the pop singer Václav Neckář.

Filming began in late February and lasted until the end of April 1966. Locations were used in and around the station building in Loděnice.

The association between Menzel and Hrabal was to continue, with Larks on a String (made in 1969 but not released until 1990), Cutting It Short (1981), The Snowdrop Festival (1984), and I Served the King of England (2006) all being directed by Menzel and based on works by Hrabal.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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