"...it is a laugh of triumph, of unlikely victory. It’s a reminder that any kind of animal, especially the human animal, can be dangerous when tormented or wronged or simply not taken seriously enough. Most important, this concluding sequence turns the entire movie into a metaphor for Czechoslovakia itself." - Richard Schickel's reaction to Hubicka's last laugh in Jiri Menzel's Closely Watched Trains (1966)
Alicia Chmielewski
1-19-07
Jiri Menzel, Closely Watched Trains (1966)
Perhaps the last thing any of us expected of Jiri Menzel’s Closely Watched Trains was an obsession with and running joke about premature ejaculation. Yet, the framework provided by young Milos’s quest to lose his virginity and the frustration that pushes him to the limits of attempting suicide is, in part, what distinguishes Menzel’s film from those of Wajda, or Munk, directors who presented the war and relationships of establishing power in ways that either closely emulated the feel of the Italian Neo-realists or focused on the absurdity of nationalism but did not depart far from the political and the establishment of exceptional characters to take a more relaxed look into the lives of ordinary people. While Polanski was more focused on personal relationships and the psychology of the individual in Knife in the Water, and thus presented a more revolutionary film in terms of departing from politics and unconventionally limiting characters and space to evoke a strong feeling of isolation and crisis, Menzel is yet even more relaxed in his presentation and free flowing narrative.
The emergence of distinct film styles can be attributed to the history of each particular Eastern European country. Just as Polish films of the fifties and sixties focused to a great degree on the absurdity of war, questions of national identity and problems of communism, the films of the Czech New Wave in the sixties sprung from a history of alternating periods of political restriction and independence. After the denunciation of Stalin in 1956, Czechoslovakia, like many other Eastern European countries, embraced greater liberalization that would eventually lead to an end to censorship and a cultural and political restoration to freedom in 1968, however short-lived it would turn out to be.
Closely Watched Trains satirizes the bureaucracy of the Reich and charms its audience as Menzel carefully crafts a “local color” feel through the use of specific locations (provincial) and Milos’s story – which tells of his ordinary provincial ancestors taking a stand against those who subjugated them, in attempts to restore freedom to the common people. Milos himself ironically becomes such a figure, forced by absurd and ridiculous circumstances to become the hero his town was waiting for. After all, we must not forget his mother’s first words to him, as he begins to work at the train station, watching the trains that carry ammunition to the Germans. She tells him to make sure nothing happens to the trains, lest their family should once again be envied by the entire town as they were, for example, when his grandfather stood against the tanks heroically during the German invasion, hoping to hypnotize them into stopping. The fact that Milos is the one to drop the bomb on the train as it passes through their station – by chance and only because the other station had been closed – is in itself fateful. Hubicka was likely the first choice culprit but was unable to carry out the plan because he was being questioned in a certain stamping incident in which the only wrong the German official can eventually pin him on is that he has violated the official language of the Reich by using their stamp to such comic ends.
While the ending is tragic to us as we see billowing black smoke filling our view and glimpse Milos’s girlfriend looking in dismay toward the scene of the explosion, Hubicka’s laugh is heard and a certain sort of victory felt for the Czechoslovakian people who had made some small success toward establishing their right to fight back against oppression. Milos dies a hero and a man at last, achieving the loss of his virginity that he has been chasing after and the love of his girlfriend and fellow countrymen that will surely come to envy his family once again.
Alicia Chmielewski
1-19-07
Jiri Menzel, Closely Watched Trains (1966)
Perhaps the last thing any of us expected of Jiri Menzel’s Closely Watched Trains was an obsession with and running joke about premature ejaculation. Yet, the framework provided by young Milos’s quest to lose his virginity and the frustration that pushes him to the limits of attempting suicide is, in part, what distinguishes Menzel’s film from those of Wajda, or Munk, directors who presented the war and relationships of establishing power in ways that either closely emulated the feel of the Italian Neo-realists or focused on the absurdity of nationalism but did not depart far from the political and the establishment of exceptional characters to take a more relaxed look into the lives of ordinary people. While Polanski was more focused on personal relationships and the psychology of the individual in Knife in the Water, and thus presented a more revolutionary film in terms of departing from politics and unconventionally limiting characters and space to evoke a strong feeling of isolation and crisis, Menzel is yet even more relaxed in his presentation and free flowing narrative.
The emergence of distinct film styles can be attributed to the history of each particular Eastern European country. Just as Polish films of the fifties and sixties focused to a great degree on the absurdity of war, questions of national identity and problems of communism, the films of the Czech New Wave in the sixties sprung from a history of alternating periods of political restriction and independence. After the denunciation of Stalin in 1956, Czechoslovakia, like many other Eastern European countries, embraced greater liberalization that would eventually lead to an end to censorship and a cultural and political restoration to freedom in 1968, however short-lived it would turn out to be.
Closely Watched Trains satirizes the bureaucracy of the Reich and charms its audience as Menzel carefully crafts a “local color” feel through the use of specific locations (provincial) and Milos’s story – which tells of his ordinary provincial ancestors taking a stand against those who subjugated them, in attempts to restore freedom to the common people. Milos himself ironically becomes such a figure, forced by absurd and ridiculous circumstances to become the hero his town was waiting for. After all, we must not forget his mother’s first words to him, as he begins to work at the train station, watching the trains that carry ammunition to the Germans. She tells him to make sure nothing happens to the trains, lest their family should once again be envied by the entire town as they were, for example, when his grandfather stood against the tanks heroically during the German invasion, hoping to hypnotize them into stopping. The fact that Milos is the one to drop the bomb on the train as it passes through their station – by chance and only because the other station had been closed – is in itself fateful. Hubicka was likely the first choice culprit but was unable to carry out the plan because he was being questioned in a certain stamping incident in which the only wrong the German official can eventually pin him on is that he has violated the official language of the Reich by using their stamp to such comic ends.
While the ending is tragic to us as we see billowing black smoke filling our view and glimpse Milos’s girlfriend looking in dismay toward the scene of the explosion, Hubicka’s laugh is heard and a certain sort of victory felt for the Czechoslovakian people who had made some small success toward establishing their right to fight back against oppression. Milos dies a hero and a man at last, achieving the loss of his virginity that he has been chasing after and the love of his girlfriend and fellow countrymen that will surely come to envy his family once again.
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