On a more substantial note, this seems to me a much more important and impressive film if one takes it at least a third if not a half the way as more symbolic than wholly realistic. It's not to say that Menzel isn't staging this in a place that is grounded in reality. On the contrary, everything seems to be filmed in places that look far from artificial, and if they were created for the film then the train station and the locations for the homes and rooms are designed to look like they've been there forever.
But what I mean is the satire has such a footing in its place and time, down to the often intentionally intrusive sound design, to the point where it barely looks like satire at all - this despite the fact that once poor young Milos suffers from his... condition, he can't seem to stop telling people about it (as meekly as possible). I'm sure critics and historians more astute or knowledgeable about the history of the period than me have connected this scenario and what happens with Milos and those around him at this station to how Czech society and communist disconnection at the time is there on the screen, or disillusionment to how rules and what Those in Charge Say is never really followed (even as destruction and violence appears imminent).
However, I took what we are seeing to be somewhat more universal in the sense that most young persons, or anyone who can fitfully remember when they were young, can know what it means to be surrounded in a job by people who have very serious tasks to do and all that pales in comparison to the bewilderment that comes with the... opposite sex, frankly (or it could be the same sex, but thats another matter). What happens when one is so ignorant of what to do when in bed with someone else for maybe the first time that everything goes awry? This film takes such a darkly comedic approach to this (CW suicide attempt) that I wonder if Hal Ashby saw this when preparing for Harold and Maude; Neckar as Milos strikes me as Bud Cort as Harold, only if he were even meeker and more introverted.
But it's not simply Neckar's equally deadpan and extremely sincere performance that makes this so endearing as a film but those around him and how they react to him (or equally dont), and how he does have someone who is attracted to him (and he her) and it's also portrayed with a playful silliness that makes such a rich contrast to the harsh black and white shacks and rust and iron of the railroad tracks around them. I especially liked Scoffin as Masa and Zelenohorska as Zdenka, ladies in his life who are making him uh so excited, the latter as this presence throughout the film that is not part of any satirical or commentary message, rather she exists to be... as real as she is, a beautiful young woman who represents a kind of freedom that no one in the story can get at even if they knew what to do with it.
Maybe that is a larger point going on here is this idea of freedom, the sexual kind but in a larger sense of what there is to do as Men; no one here can be all that free due to the wartime duties, but sexual contact and the malaise with young attraction seems to be something that breaks up that routine. Even when Milos late in the film gets taken away by what appear to be some nasty looking SS men on a train when one of them notices Milos's wrist scars he realizes to the effect of (without a word) "eh, he can go."
It's a curious moment, but what I took that to be was a variation on what we have seen elsewhere in the story; it's not necessary Milos himself that makes Closely Watched Trains a unique and engaging experience but how everyone reacts to him (which seems to be at worst incredulity and mostly chuckling embarrassment). He keeps on very plainly and in that same soft monotone declaring that he is a Man, as if this is the only way he can be considered that. Since he isn't really interested in war, maybe he has a point. Or, Menzel is saying, taking yourself too seriously as a "Man" in any context (or if I can try to find a larger sociological comment here goes) is a farce unto itself.
But hey, just try to think of soccer when *that* happens, you know?
But what I mean is the satire has such a footing in its place and time, down to the often intentionally intrusive sound design, to the point where it barely looks like satire at all - this despite the fact that once poor young Milos suffers from his... condition, he can't seem to stop telling people about it (as meekly as possible). I'm sure critics and historians more astute or knowledgeable about the history of the period than me have connected this scenario and what happens with Milos and those around him at this station to how Czech society and communist disconnection at the time is there on the screen, or disillusionment to how rules and what Those in Charge Say is never really followed (even as destruction and violence appears imminent).
However, I took what we are seeing to be somewhat more universal in the sense that most young persons, or anyone who can fitfully remember when they were young, can know what it means to be surrounded in a job by people who have very serious tasks to do and all that pales in comparison to the bewilderment that comes with the... opposite sex, frankly (or it could be the same sex, but thats another matter). What happens when one is so ignorant of what to do when in bed with someone else for maybe the first time that everything goes awry? This film takes such a darkly comedic approach to this (CW suicide attempt) that I wonder if Hal Ashby saw this when preparing for Harold and Maude; Neckar as Milos strikes me as Bud Cort as Harold, only if he were even meeker and more introverted.
But it's not simply Neckar's equally deadpan and extremely sincere performance that makes this so endearing as a film but those around him and how they react to him (or equally dont), and how he does have someone who is attracted to him (and he her) and it's also portrayed with a playful silliness that makes such a rich contrast to the harsh black and white shacks and rust and iron of the railroad tracks around them. I especially liked Scoffin as Masa and Zelenohorska as Zdenka, ladies in his life who are making him uh so excited, the latter as this presence throughout the film that is not part of any satirical or commentary message, rather she exists to be... as real as she is, a beautiful young woman who represents a kind of freedom that no one in the story can get at even if they knew what to do with it.
Maybe that is a larger point going on here is this idea of freedom, the sexual kind but in a larger sense of what there is to do as Men; no one here can be all that free due to the wartime duties, but sexual contact and the malaise with young attraction seems to be something that breaks up that routine. Even when Milos late in the film gets taken away by what appear to be some nasty looking SS men on a train when one of them notices Milos's wrist scars he realizes to the effect of (without a word) "eh, he can go."
It's a curious moment, but what I took that to be was a variation on what we have seen elsewhere in the story; it's not necessary Milos himself that makes Closely Watched Trains a unique and engaging experience but how everyone reacts to him (which seems to be at worst incredulity and mostly chuckling embarrassment). He keeps on very plainly and in that same soft monotone declaring that he is a Man, as if this is the only way he can be considered that. Since he isn't really interested in war, maybe he has a point. Or, Menzel is saying, taking yourself too seriously as a "Man" in any context (or if I can try to find a larger sociological comment here goes) is a farce unto itself.
But hey, just try to think of soccer when *that* happens, you know?