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Closely Watched Trains Movie Review

Closely Watched Trains is a 1966 Czech drama film directed by Jiri Menzel. It is a pretty overrated movie.
It is about a sexual awakening of a young man working at a train station in Czechoslovakia during World War II. A weird premise and the execution is just the same. I actually think it is pretty original because of that, but that originality isn’t usually great in this instance.

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“A woman is nature’s finest jewel“

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First and foremost, the sexual aspect. That is what the whole movie is about and I do admire the film for tackling such brave subjects such as premature ejaculation in the sixties no less, but it still felt dated because of that. There are some nice sensual scenes here and there, but the emotion is missing almost entirely plus the character development is pretty weak.
But the war stuff was frustrating to me. I am pretty tired of WWII movies by this point and I unfortunately I have to say that this movie suffered because of that as it’s one of a few movies that just did not have to revolve around this time period at all. Maybe I am missing some context, but to me it felt almost pointless and such a needlessly clichéd approach.
Closely Watched Trains is very well acted and directed. Although the script isn’t great, the dialogue is pretty good and I liked how strongly the film relied on the visuals. I liked that as the cinematography is truly fantastic here.
There are a lot of phenomenal shots to be had here and the camera movements are top-notch. I liked its imagery at times and I really liked its score as well. It was fitting to the story and quite memorable.

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In the end, I guess it is a solid film. Certainly not my cup of tea, but I realize how critics were taken aback by it. It is original and visually wonderful, but that just wasn’t enough for me. That is why it is in my book a 3.5 movie and a low one honestly. And of course it didn’t deserve its foreign Oscar at all.
Closely Watched Trains has very good cinematography and it is an interesting, original film in terms of storytelling, but it is pretty dated in my opinion, the character development is quite wek and it isn’t emotional enough leading to a very overrated foreign film.