Closely Observed Trains [Czechoslovakia 1966]

Ostře sledované vlaky
Director: J. Menzel
Cinematographer: J. Šofr

Of all of the Czechoslovakian New Wave films I have seen so far, this one stands out as a deft use of form for psychological purposes. In fact, both The White Dove and The Ear were films that exploited form for psychological exploration; but this film distinguishes itself both by its Freudian psychological flavour and by its formal use of carefully layered associations and at times surreal quality.

The brilliance of it all is that we are often left wondering to what extent it is really a comedy; in fact the comedy appears to be a tool to disarm us so that the more serious symbolism can disturb us further. Often a perfectly normal dialogue will slowly drift off into the surreal, and we are caught by surprise because we only realise quite late that what is happening or being said isn't quite normal. And then there are the disturbing images, sometimes verbal, sometimes visual--a bull losing its eyes, a goose being stuffed (or strangled) symbolising taboo masturbation. It is not these alone but their juxtaposition with scenes of normalcy and light humour that puts us off guard and lends poignancy to the sexual symbols.

And it is a film replete with symbols. In particular it is full of phallic symbols, castration, premature ejaculation, etc. Similarly to the rest of the film, these symbols are both humorous and disturbing, but they also form part of a larger construction in which we see the protagonist, a young boy, trying to work out how to become a man, prefiguring the same act later committed by the protagonist in A Short Film About Love. The boy does make progress as a character through the film, first moving through trepidation to self-hatred and self-destruction, then through recovery and hope, and then finally to a half-tragic, half-perfect heroism. But the construction of the symbology of his character is not entirely linear; rather, the symbolic edifice is carefully woven throughout the film so that associations built up verbally at the beginning are then visually recapitulated in different ways toward the end, and perhaps vice versa.

Finally there is the political dimension to this film. It takes place during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in the Second World War. As has been said before, the end of the film transforms the entire movie into a metaphor for Czechoslovakia itself--the charming, everyday Czechoslovakia that prefers to just live ordinary life and forget about the occupiers, but that develops a new self-confidence only after proceeding first through self-destruction, and then expresses this in a desperate but heroic act. Obviously those who see 1960s Czechoslovakia as pulling away from the Warsaw Pact may think there is an analogy there as well, but again I would be reluctant to draw that connection with this film. Perhaps the connection is simply the idea that Czechoslovakia as a country has always been surrounded and influenced by larger powers, and tolerated this through apparent indifference as many smaller countries do, but that it must come of age and can only do so through independence.

While the particular content of the message may have a specifically Czechoslovakian target audience, the skill of the construction of the film can be universally appreciated. The cinematography lies not so much in the motion or angle of the camera but in the montage of images, their timing, the way they give rise to associations and symbolic links. There are also some interesting sequences of Rube Goldberg-like train equipment that bear mentioning. Basically the camera does its job as a still camera would--by capturing images that are then put together in a collage that serves the wider purpose.

This film is worth studying, if nothing else, for the simplicity with which it employs its form. Too often surrealist-type forms seem to stray from their content; but in this film the form stays tightly tied to the content, so although it is not so intelligible as to lose its enigmatic quality completely, it all fits together somehow and achieves a disturbing, humorous, and interesting quality.