DES TRAINS ETROITEMENT SURVEILLES

By : Jiri Menzel

With : Václav Neckář, Josef Somr, Vlastimil Brodsky et Vladimír Valenta


Tchécoslovaquie, 1966, PAL, 4/3 - 93 min
zone 2, N&B, mono


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English title: CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
Original title: OSTRE SLEDOVANE VLAKY

Directed by : Jiri Menzel
With : Václav Neckář, Josef Somr, Vlastimil Brodsky and Vladimír Valenta

Czech Republic, 1966, PAL, 4/3, 93 min
zone 2, Black and White, mono
Czech original version with French subtitles

Comedy-drama about a young man employed in a tiny station during World War II. Milos Hrma, a bumbling dispatcher's apprentice at a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, he embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot. Milos becomes involved in a plot to blow up a German ammunition train.

Bonus : Analysis by Romain Le Vern (12 mn /2008)
Booklet : "The Miracle of the Revival" by Galina Kopanenova ; "The Czech Cinematography, Litterature and Cinema" by Zdena Skapova (extract from LE CINEMA TCHEQUE ET SLOVAQUE, ed. by Centre Pompidou)

Few European films are so affectionately remembered as CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS, one of the pinnacles of the Czech New Wave of the 60s, brutally cut short by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August, 1968, which caused Milos Forman, one of its chief exponents, to flee to America. Jiri Menzel, its director, stayed and was unable to make films for some time. CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS, however, won Hollywood's Best Foreign Language film.

1967 Academy Award for the best foreign-language film
Nomination for the 1967 Golden Globe for best foreign-language foreign film


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