Liebe nach Fahrplan (1966)

Liebe nach Fahrplan: Directed by Jirí Menzel. With Václav Neckár, Josef Somr, Vlastimil Brodský, Vladimír Valenta. An apprentice train dispatcher at a village station seeks his first sexual encounter and becomes despondent when he is unable to perform.

“The reason to watch u0026quot;Closely watched trainsu0026quot; again was the death of Jiri Menzel in september 2020. Jiri Menzel was part of the Czech new wave in the early u0026#39;60s, of which Milos Forman was the main protagonist. The films of the directors of this movement were often not explicit political, but implicit they were socially critical nonetheless.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn both u0026quot;Closely watched trainsu0026quot; and u0026quot;The Firemenu0026#39;s Ballu0026quot; (1967, Forman) the comrades are far from model workers. They prefer to be lazy above being tired. This is beautifully illustrated in the beginning scene of u0026quot;Closely watched trainsu0026quot; in which main character Milos Hrma (Vaclav Neckar) prepares for his first working day on a minor train station, a job he selected because of the expected lack of workload.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn 1966 Menzel was not blamed for the implicit criticism in u0026quot;Closely watched trainsu0026quot;. In the first place the u0026quot;Spring of Pragueu0026quot; was still going on and in the second place the story was situated during the Second World War and not during Communist domination. The situation had totally changed when u0026quot;Larks on a stringu0026quot; (1969) was released. This time the u0026quot;Spring of Pragueu0026quot; was over after the invasion in 1968 and the story was situated after the u0026quot;liberationu0026quot; from the Germans. After u0026quot;Larks on a stringu0026quot; the career of Menzel came to a standstill. Worth mentioning is that both films were based on a novel by Bohumil Hrabal. Menzel liked to adapt books of this author to the screen.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHaving not much to do during working hours, there is a lot of flirtation on the workplace. We can see that in u0026quot;Loves of blondeu0026quot; (1965, Milos Forman) as well as in u0026quot;Closely watched trainsu0026quot;. This is were the problems for Milos begin, because he suffers from premature ejaculation. This gives rise to performance anxiety towards that nice conductress he has an eye on. During the whole film there are sexual undertones, such as in the scene in which a peasant woman feeds up a goose by massaging his neck.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe combination of war time and coming of age shares u0026quot;Closely watched trainsu0026quot; with u0026quot;Lacombe Lucienu0026quot; (1974, Louis Malle). In u0026quot;Lacombe Lucienu0026quot; the boy chooses the part of the Germans and abuses the power he obtained in this way against a Jewish girl. In u0026quot;Closely watched trainsu0026quot; the boy choose to cooperatie with the resistance to prove that he is a real man. The end of the film is tragic and contrasts strongly with the bittersweet tone of the rest of the movie.”