Closely Watched Trains

“Milos” (Václav Neckár) is about to start his new job as a trainee dispatcher on the Czech railways, and is proudly sporting his new uniform as he proudly arrives for duty. He is to work with “Hubicka” (Josef Somr) who has a penchant for the ladies and that merely serves to remind our young man that as yet, he has only very limited experience with the opposite sex. That’s despite some obvious flirting with “Mása” (Jitka Scoffin) who clearly has designs on his body! It’s late one evening and they manage to get some time together, alone and intimate - but something goes wrong! Next thing, the now totally dejected “Milos” is resorting to drastic action… Then we discover that his doctor has diagnosed something that is going to need his friends to help him out with, discretely. All the while, the Nazis have been making their presence felt and with an enormous ammunition train due to pass through their station, the staff have decided that they need to do their bit for the war effort! The arrival of their supervisor on the big day to investigate some inappropriate rubber-stamping adds even more pressure to the staff as lots of pots seem to come to the boil at once. Neckár is on great form here. He manages to convey the naïveté of his character with an aplomb that marries the gently written and delivered comedy here with his own anxieties about sex - which easily outweigh those he has about sabotaging any enemy train. Somr (who did remind me a lot of Peter Sellars) is also on great form as the mischief making couch scratcher and the underplayed wartime menace adds a little to the richness of this characterful drama where great pride is taken in meticulously turning up for work to follow in family traditions. I didn’t exactly love the ending, but it’s still a fitting conclusion for a story about so many young men in wartime whose more natural priorities in life were often upturned by events outwith their control.