Jiri Menzel (From 'Modern Film Scripts: Closely Observed Trains') - (By Jan Zalman - 1971) - Movies - http://maxpages.com/czechcinema/Menzel_and

In Menzel the Czech cinema has gained yet one more talented film-maker of considerable individuality. 'We all know that life is cruel and sad. What's the point of demonstrating this in films? Let us show we're brave by laughing at life. And in that laughter let us not look for cynicism but rather reconciliation.' Perhaps it was these words that earned Menzel's films the label of 'smiling humanity'. It is not altogether an accurate label, for it glosses over two of his most characteristic features: not only does Menzel smile, he as often as not laughs outright; and his humanity would remain an anaemic concept if we were to ignore the sexuality that forms its integral part. For the first time in Menzel's work it made its appearance in "The Crime at the Girl's School", whereas in "Closely Observed Trains" it becomes the central leitmotif.
The story is set at the time of the German occupation. A young railway employee starting on his first job at a small country station has to wait a long time before he manages to 'become a man'. At last, with the help of a young artiste, he manages it, but is killed shortly afterwards while trying to blow up a German munitions train.
To speak of 'a confrontation of obscenity and tragedy', as does Menzel himself, is to invite misunderstanding. Though the statement in itself is very apt, it leaves out the fact of Menzel's shyness. It is due to this shyness that, despite the sultry eroticism of some of the scenes in this film, "Closely Observed Trains" is a far cry from the 'sex epics' so popular especially in Western literature and films, where they compete with the frequently no less fashionable 'dramas of alienation'. Sexuality as treated by Menzel is a sexuality filtered through shyness and naivety and relieved by an understanding compassion. Menzel is not interested in sexual obsession or violence. The question which intrigues him (and which is dealt with once again in his latest film, "The Crime in the Library") is the question of the sexual freedom of modern man. The necessity of a full sex life does not seem to Menzel to be a complex, but rather one of the defence mechanisms adopted by modern mankind against the menace of dehumanisation.
However, those critics who raised their voices against "Closely Observed Trains" did not do so on moralistic grounds. The young artiste who initiates the boy into the secrets of love is the girl who brings the bomb intended for the destruction of the German train. This daring link between the sexual theme and the sacred subject of the fight for national liberty gives both Hrabal's original story and Menzel's film their absurd dimension. It cannot be denied, though, that the hero's brave deed comes somewhat unexpectedly and, moreover, is presented in an extraordinarily unheroic manner. It is a matter of conjecture whether this is a lapse on the part of the director or whether Menzel, still under thirty, is challenging the accepted stereotypes of the official 'resistance' legend.
(Copyright - Lorrimer Publishing Limited)

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