Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

elvircorhodzic CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS is a comedy drama, in which, the paradox of a point is included in the title. This is a reference to a shy youth, social and political turmoil, while arrogant trains of life passing by. The film is based on a 1965 novel by Bohumil Hrabal.The young Miloš Hrma, who speaks with misplaced pride of his family of misfits and malingerers, is engaged as a newly trained station guard in a small railway station during the Second World War and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. The stationmaster is passionate breeder of pigeons and rabbits. The train dispatcher Hubička is preoccupied with women. Miloš holds an as-yet platonic love for the pretty, young conductor, but he is still a virgin. The Nazi-minded Zednicek periodically visits a train station. However, it seems that his propaganda has no effect on the station staff. Problems arise when Máša wants sex with Miloš...It is a coming-of-age story about a nervous young man who is going through a kind of "sexual crisis" to a desperate knowledge. Mr. Menzel has showed a birth of a heroic act from an indifferent social environment and internal youthful anxiety. This is a charming and witty deflection from false problems.The atmosphere is very good, while the characterization is excellent. Some scenes are imaginative to tragicomic proportions. I would not characterize this film as a kind of ideological criticism. This is only a preview of a touching reality.Václav Neckář as Miloš Hrma is a funny and tragic hero who constantly volunteers in a suicide mission. Josef Somr as train dispatcher Hubička is enough perverse, aware and sympathetic to one member of the resistance. Jitka Bendová as conductor Máša is girl who is full of understanding. Jitka Zelenohorská as telegraphist Zdenička has realized that the stamps can be very creative. Vladimír Valenta as stationmaster has understood that nothing can be black and white. Libuše Havelková as stationmaster wife is a clever woman. Naďa Urbánková as Viktoria Freie is a kind of salvation, which, unfortunately, take a young life.

sharky_55 This film of the Czechoslovak New Wave has a gentle sense of the absurd, as if young Milos was still stuck in his childhood and unable to reconcile with what was looming to be a second world war. These events of course always spurned a sort of accelerated growing up because there was battles to be fought and every able young man was necessary to the war effort. So what we see is Milos trying again and again to lose his virginity and fix his premature ejaculation because only then would he become a man - not the awkward, gangly teenager that bumbles around the place and takes after his lazy father. In a amusing twist, his despondent suicide attempt because of his masculine shortcomings is actually interpreted as an attempt to get out of the war effort. Elsewhere we see a lot of bad advice that sticks to Milos with an anxious, unshakeable presence. His mother wishes him luck as he takes over the mantle as a station guard and encourages him to work hard so that he might also be able to retire early and relax on the pension like his father. Both Hubicka and the doctor push him into losing his virginity with an older, experienced woman so that he might finally be a man, which leads to a series of comedic conversations where Milos asks nearly everyone in sight, including his colleague's sisters and wives. "Think of football", he is advised, so that he might not ejaculate early. What this really does is make it even more important in Milos' mind. The war is coming. The trains must be blown up. He hastily agrees to anything that might prove his worth. What Menzel has done here is fully embrace the comic nature of chasing and sexual advances, even in wartime. Soldiers are briefly frozen as girls wave at them from the other side of the tracks. The stationmaster fidgets and bellows to calls of dinner like child unable to stop playing with a new toy. In the most absurdly whimsical sequence of them all, Hubicka slowly makes his way up a young girl's skirt, but he is not applying kisses, but station stamps on her skin. Even the most intimate of sexual activity is quietly being sanctioned and recorded bureaucratically. Later, in the farcical 'trial' of this event, Menzel continually cross-cuts away to suggest the roar of the train is soon to arrive. Milos, in his new-found, supercharged confidence (and therefore recklessness) becomes the standout Czechoslovakian figure, breaking free of the oppressive communist regime and representing a movement that would no longer be satisfied with watching trains patiently - for the Fuhrer or any other target.

Nim Lhûg This is one of those movies that I recommend to anyone who consider themselves to be movie buffs. It's probably the best product of the Czech New Wave.In part it's about a boy discovering his sexuality -- while performing the least sexy job in the universe: watching trains. Instead of being all rosy and sexy, the tone is very dark and grim. If you bear in mind that this movie was made in the 1960s, in the middle of the "sexual revolution", you can see why a less-than-ideal take on sexuality was so refreshing.In spite of being dark and gloomy, the movie is very funny. Czech humour is like that. There is war, violence, death and disappointing sex, and yet you will find yourself laughing quite heartily.

Emil Bakkum The film "Watch the train" (Dutch title) tells the story of Milos, a young points-man, in Czlechoslovakia during the German occupation in the Second World War. The film combines a mild humor with a sketch of the Nazi's cruelty and stupidity. Milos starts to work in the railway station of his local village. He is hardly full-grown, and his personality is still fragile. His basic pre-occupation, and a source of self-doubt, is the opposite sex. His sexual performance becomes an existential problem for him, and even induces a suicide attempt, after an unsuccessful intercourse with his girlfriend, a train guard. Eventually the niece of a colleague helps him to overcome his fears. As such the narrative is rather thin. The real charm of the film is in the detail, int the little events, that accompany this main story. The stationmaster, who suffers under his dominant wife. The frivolous colleague of Milos. The apathetic German soldiers, who find comfort in a railway wagon filled with nurses. The photographer, who bursts into a gale of laughter, after his house is demolished by an air raid. And the crooked regional inspector, who is a dedicated but stupid and insensible supporter of Hitler and the army of occupation. In the wake of his successful intercourse, which proves his manhood, Milos sabotages and destroys a train filled with ammunition. Unfortunately this second success in his young life leads at the same time to his own destruction. On a higher level I don't know what to think of this narrative. It is not an invitation to reflect. Neither is it a tale of heroism, or a portrayal of existential emptiness. The events just unfold, as if by accident, and could just as well have taken a different turn. It brings some reminiscences of the Russian film Ballad of a Soldier, which in my opinion is a better appeal to our emotions. Both films probably simply mean to sketch the waste of promising lives as a result of the stupidity of war. It is probably this aspect of the possibilities for a happy future, which shows their Bolshevist background.