Closely Watched Trains

1966 / 92min / DCP

One of the landmark films of the Czechoslovak New Wave, Menzel’s debut feature, made when he was 28, follows the travails of a naïve young railway trainee working at a provincial station during World War II, Miloš (Václav Neckář), focused on losing his virginity while Europe is burning all around him and Nazi supply trains roll through the station en route to the front. Deeply humane, disarmingly funny, celebratorily sensual, and at once affirmative and mournful, this story of a tragic hero’s coming of age would become a hit at home and a beloved arthouse staple abroad, an enduring classic of the (briefly) liberated Czechoslovak cinema.

Extended introduction by Czech film curator, Irena Kovarova on Friday, January 27th at 9:45pm