MovieChat Forums > Ostrzhe sledované vlaky (1966) Discussion > Good film --BUT the anachronisms bother ...

Good film --BUT the anachronisms bother me

posted 12 years ago by Bob Pr.
20 replies | jump to latest

It seems to me that this film's screenplay has the sexual revolution (commonly attributed to the 1960s) time-travelling back and permeating TWO of the central female characters BUT NOT others.

I graduated from high school in 1945. While it was a small Vermont town, I don't think it was that much different than many other places in the USA.

At that time, HS kids were fairly reserved about having intercourse. We "necked" (kissing, hugging) on dates and "petted" (hands touching skin under loosened clothing) with those with whom we were more seriously involved. At my HS (500 students) maybe every 5-7? years a HS girl would get pregnant (none ever did in my class of 100). In a few classes, a girl or 2 might be known as a school or class slut; our class had one in its 4 years.

But most kids respected a barrier against actual intromission at least before being engaged. [In testament to this, there's the well-known, droll Vermont maxim that the gestation length for a couple's first child is usually 5-6 months whereas their later children always take 9 months.:)]

And this didn't seem to be just a Vermont thing.

Those beliefs/standards seem shared by my Army buddies in the USA & Korea and by the girls I dated in Washington, D.C., where I worked a few years after the Army, and then later in Columbia, MO, where I went to university.

However, as the mid/late '40s morphed into the '50s, there were RAPID changes in standards of sexual behavior among my peers (late teens, early twenties).

I remember "petting" standards briefly shifted to allowing bodies to be nude in bed (but without actual penetration) before quickly shifting farther. That seemed universally true in the company I kept in Columbia, MO, with UMizzou, Stephens, & Christian College girls.

AND among my acquaintances, by 1950-53, relationships realizing the enjoyment of "fully adult" sex grew increasingly common among college age students.

My sense is that the narrative of "Closely Watched Trains" borrows from this later sexual liberation (commonly attributed to "The 60s") to visit Czech life in 1944 and transplant SOME of that there -- AS IF the young female telegrapher who played strip poker and whose skin on her legs and butt was progressively stamped as she progressively lost more clothes AS IF she had very much enjoyed the titillation, provocation (and ???) AND AS IF the girl fascinated with Milos would only keep her fascination and be satisfied by having sustained intercourse with him.

I find it VERY difficult to believe that, in 1944 Czechoslovakia, these 2 girls were that much ahead of the spirit of the times (the Zeitgeist) of moral behavior for young girls in western civilization. That aspect seems VERY anachronistic -- way out of keeping time-wise. But maybe it does inject a bit more comedy in the narrative?

And since most viewers of this film will not have been teenagers in 1944--or even born by then--maybe this will not be a problem for them?

But, is there anyone familiar with Czechoslovakian morality in that era with dissenting beliefs like mine? --or from the USA or anywhere else? Or bothered by the same thing? Is there anyone else reading this who's also in their 80s or 90s?

[–] princesstinymeat 12 years ago

I just watched the film for the first time, which I very much enjoyed, but had thoughts similar to yours, specifically that the portrayal of a sort of rampant, open sexuality was more aligned with the publication date of the novel (1965) than the story's WWII setting. The group scene with the nurses and the German soldiers seemed especially out of place. I thought perhaps the apparent shift in sexual mores was a response to the ongoing war, a sort of "eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."

[–] Bob Pr. 12 years ago

Whew!! Thank you so much; it's a relief to find that even if I'm out of the mainstream, at least I have good company.

And you make a VERY good point about the 1965 publication date of the novel; that was certainly in a more open sexual time. (AND, slightly before some other extremely important Czech events.)

Thoughts about the Czech ambivalent reactions to Germany's pre-WW2 occupation of their country and whether the film (and certainly the book) are in some ways a response to this have been rattling around in my thoughts without being able to formulate them clearly.

What I've been 'muddily' thinking was that Czechoslovakia was occupied by Nazi Germany as a result of the Munich Accord. From the little I understand, some Czechs (esp. in Sudetenland) welcomed this, some Czechs joined the Nazi armed forces &/or purged Jews, while there were some who were very opposed to the Nazi/German occupation. And maybe there's been somewhat of a national sense of guilt (or regret?) about not opposing occupying forces of the Nazi forces (followed by those of the USSR) more?

So this book and movie comes out during a time when Czechs are rebuilding their sense of national pride -- so maybe showing Milos as being actively, heroically involved in a Czech resistance to occupation could be comforting and the time warped sexually free behavior of the few women are just comedic touches to float his heroic actions along (&/or blindfold Soviet censors)?

And just maybe it was part of an increasing self-respect chorus that led to the "Prague Spring" (1968) several years after and the final liberation of Czechoslovakia from USSR domination 19 years later (1987)?

[–] princesstinymeat 12 years ago

The film is above all a sex comedy. Many comedies require a certain suspension of disbelief from the audience, and I'm guessing Closely Watched Trains is no exception. (The physician's "diagnosis" of the post-suicidal Milos is a prime example.) The sexual anachronisms have to be overlooked and accepted as within the reasonable bounds of the genre conventions.

Another possible explanation is the audience's view is skewed by Milos's sexual obsession. Perhaps the exaggerated behaviors of the other characters have been magnified and embellished by our hero's burning need to become a man. Maybe our experience is Milos's hormone-tinted version of things.

Or - maybe the novel and film are actually subversive political contrivances couched in farce to, as you suggest, distract the Soviet censors.

Now I have to watch the movie again...

[–] franzkabuki 11 years ago

These were predominantly ethnic Germans who welcomed the Nazis in Sudetenland, not Czechs. An important distinction.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] PsychoDingo 12 years ago

It is common for Czechoslovak films from the 1960s to be metaphoric jabs at the communist regime in control of Czechoslovakia at the time. Chances are, Closely Watched Trains is really set in the 1960s, and the occupiers are not really nazis, but communists. It wouldn't be the only example of a Czechoslovak new wave film using nazis in place of communists, The Cremator being one example of such.

The ironic thing is that coconuts are, in fact, migratory.

[–] Bob Pr. 12 years ago

It is common for Czechoslovak films from the 1960s to be metaphoric jabs at the communist regime in control of Czechoslovakia at the time. Chances are, Closely Watched Trains is really set in the 1960s, and the occupiers are not really nazis, but communists. It wouldn't be the only example of a Czechoslovak new wave film using nazis in place of communists, The Cremator being one example of such.

AHHH! Thank you, VERY much!!

I'm not that familiar with Czech films from any era so your perspective makes a lot of sense and helps a great deal to put those previously jarring (to me) pieces together much more harmoniously.

Integrating your perspective, it would seem that the main (although subtle) thrust was to present resistance to the foreign power (USSR) domination (Milos blowing up the occupying power's train) while disguising it as a sex comedy and NOT (as I was wondering) to handle any residual guilt over the Nazi occupation.

I suspect Vaclev Havel--the playwright, the leader of the Prague Spring that overturned USSR occupation (& helped dismantle the USSR), the eventual leader of Czechoslovakia--would have enjoyed this film very much and would have appreciated its hidden message quite clearly.

Thanks again.

[–] PsychoDingo 12 years ago

I believe Closely Watched Trains is not disguised as a sex comedy, but is a legitimate sex comedy and also an allegorical opposition to the communist regime. The nazis, not the sex, serve as the cover-up. The tricky thing is that there are a lot of Czech films that actually are about the nazi occupation, so it isn't always clear when the nazis are used as decoys for the communists.

One thing you'll likely notice, if you get into watching more Czech films, is they tend to span multiple genres, or they defy classification under typical American/British genre standards.

Jiri Menzel is into making sexual movies, even when he isn't trying to hide from censors. Larks on a String is overtly critical of the communists, and also has strong sexual elements (and is a really fun movie, which was banned for a long time). I Served the King of England is another good example of that, and was made after the USSR fell. I highly recommend both of those films.

If you would like to see some Czech cinema that's more true to the WW2 period, have a look at:

Romeo, Juliet and Darkness
Dark Blue World
Zelary

The ironic thing is that coconuts are, in fact, migratory.

[–] princesstinymeat 12 years ago

Thanks for your insight! Thanks also for the recommendations. Cheers!

[–] lapratho 12 years ago

Sorry, but these comments are way off the mark.
Let's have some reality checks:

Please never compare US "morals" with those of other countries.
Berlin, Paris, and even Prague of the 1920s and 1930s would have been an absolute shock to any American, due to their extremely open club scene that was celebrating any type of the creative and performing arts and sex and entertainment in a plain in sight and fun way.
Prague is of course the Czech capital, so any Czech country person with contacts would have heard about all that weird art and neat debauchery that was happening in the big city!
This whole "modern" culture was far more than underground in these major metropolitan areas, drew circles all through Europe, and had certainly been at least heard and talked about in many rural areas as well.

As is well depicted in the film, there was a conflict between old and new, and the rise of the NS party and Hitler actually threw Europe and the world probably about 20 years back for a while, because controlling sex and and plugging up any perceived "perverted" behaviour was the key to harnessing anger and frustration that could then be exploited by the military machine.
So, instead of an open development, the progressive stream was suppressed and pushed back underground to be used by the military instead. But the Genie had already been out of the bottle and still whisked about a bit.

The orgy scene is also historically accurate, as it was precisely the withdrawal and then subsequent use as reward of sexual freedoms was useful in controlling the troops. Such soldier orgies were common then and are unfortunately also in use to this day as mass rape tools to terrorize populations.
Especially the SS is well known by historians for its use and rationing out of sex as reward.

The insight about this film also being a pointer to Soviet occupation using the analogy of the Nazi occupation is valid.

However, the adolescent games played were quite feasible even for the 1940s and the plot as a whole is very believable and bears no anachronisms.

This is also what made it possible to make such a critique of any occupying regime slip past any Czech Communist Party censors that may have opposed, despite the possible interpretation as anti-Soviet message.

Overall, this is an excellent film and a real life style tragi-comedy, in which irony is ripe, daily life is often a slow and boring grind, coming of age is confusing at best, and action is all too often not any fun but deadly and final instead.

The cinematography is indeed beautifully done and the directing and acting is in typically Czech fashion excellent.
Be sure to check out more Czech films and TV series, as growing up with them in Germany was sheer joy for me!

[–] Bob Pr. 12 years ago

lapratho, I VERY much appreciate your comments (as well as IMDb for providing this forum for such exchanges of information).

Your comments seem very astute and knowledgeable, so much so that I'm very inclined to completely surrender my views about anachronisms in this film for those that you gave.

BUT, before doing that,

--would you please tell me/us something of your experience or reasons that you'd have a depth of knowledge of the Czechoslovakia (& Europe) of that era, plus your background: are you a professor (as I've been) and if so, of what, or what other basis of training or experience do you have for such a comprehensive opinion of Europe and Czechoslovakia in those years?

Thank you.

With a (to me) satisfactory reply, I'll be happy to retract my "anachronisms" statements and refer all readers to your explanatory post.

[–] snowbladecze 10 years ago

The main point of the story is criticism of fashism, war being a pointless conflict (the hero dies besides a dying german soldier) and the irony of the main hero's fate. Mr. Hrabal (the author of the novel) wasn't allowed to publish his book because he wasn't a member of the communist party.

The book was first published in 1965, three years before the soviet occupation so the statement about the story being a criticism of the soviet occupation isn't valid.

But there indeed werebooks that, at the time, didn't follow the communist doctrine and thus were illegal. All of those books critized the czech partisans. You see, most of the partisan groups were trained by officers sent by the soviet union. After the communist coup in 1948, they were all called heroes.

But in reality, they caused more damage and terror to their own people than they did to germans, and they tried to save their skins when the war was over.

[–] Bob Pr. 10 years ago

snowbladecze said:

The book was first published in 1965, three years before the soviet occupation so the statement about the story being a criticism of the soviet occupation isn't valid.

You're apparently thinking of the USSR's attempt to crush "The Prague Spring" but ignoring the previous Russian occupation and domination that "the Prague Spring" was a reaction against. See the following, from the link "This day in history"

"On the night of August 20, 1968, approximately 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring"--a brief period of liberalization in the communist country. Czechoslovakians protested the invasion with public demonstrations and other non-violent tactics, but they were no match for the Soviet tanks. The liberal reforms of First Secretary Alexander Dubcek were repealed and "normalization" began under his successor Gustav Husak.

"Pro-Soviet communists seized control of Czechoslovakia's democratic government in 1948. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin imposed his will on Czechoslovakia's communist leaders, and the country was run as a Stalinist state until 1964...." (Emphasis added]

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/soviets-invade-czechoslovak ia

[–] snowbladecze 10 years ago

There was no other Soviet occupation prior to the one following the Prague Spring. The pro-soviet communists, that were led by Mr. Klement Gottwald, willingly plunged the country into the hands of Stalin. He didn't need to force anyone.

Thanks to his own thirst for power, Mr. Gottwald earned himself a stressful life, always trying to keep Stalin at bay from taking CSSR completely.

Following the death of Stalin and Gottwald, the more liberal government eased up on censorship and because of the 1960's economic recession, the government was slowly orienting itself to the right political spectrum.

Fearing that the country was turning away from it's eastern ally and the communist principles, the hardcore communists wrote a letter to Kremlin, pleading for immediate intervention and promising a safe way for the forces of Warsaw's pact.

Only thanks to the Gen. Svoboda, most if not all of the liberal communists that were sent to Kremlin for hearing, returned.

[–] Jastrzebiec 10 years ago

BobPr, with all due respect, one doesn't need to be a professor or have specialized "training or experience" to perceive what is obvious, in fact it can get in the way. In my experience, professors are generally the last people to understand what is really going on, (or went on). Just czech out Brassai's book "The Secret Paris of the Thirties," for a glimpse of cops, criminals, opium dens, bordellos, gender-bending, gay and lesbian couples, black/white romance, etc. My friend, this film showed that there was nothing new under the Hun.

[–] trainman1969-1 10 years ago

The culture clash notwithstanding, I do have to make the observation that this film has "Hogan's Heroes" syndrome.

Hogan's Heroes was American-made, and as a television show could not depict the sexuality shown in this film, but it depicted the same era, and was attacking the same group of people, namely the Nazis.

And like this movie, we see some interesting anachronisms.

If you watch this show, you'll see what I mean. While the uniforms worn by the German Military and Allied POW's are indeed correct, the women almost never look right for the era. Their clothing, their hairstyles, even their eyeglasses, if they wear them are more consistent with the 1960's, when the show was made, than with the 1940's, which the show depicts. Occasionally you see older women dressed correctly for the time or place, but the younger women usually look contemporary for the '60's.

In this film it's the same way. The younger women's clothing and hairstyles are more consistent with the 1960's.

I presume that in both cases, budget and/or availability played a part. After all, the main characters are the men and women in uniform in both productions, and that is whom the audience is supposed to focus their attention.

And like Hogan's Heroes, the anachronisms actually add to the comic nature of this film, rather than detracting from it.

[–] henrimaine 10 years ago

Interesting discussion here. I tend to agree with the original poster. The depiction of sexuality in this film followed the 1960s standards. Girls in the 1940s would not have been that open to sex as they were in this film.

Somebody in this thread said that European sexual morals were quite open already before World War II. That may have been so in Paris, perhaps also in Prague, but this film does not take place in Paris. These are common country people, not some radical artists.

Such historical inaccuracies regarding sex may have been intentional in this film - for the sake of comedic effect, perhaps some sort of anti-communist act. But I'm afraid, in many films, these inaccuracies are also unintentional, they happen because the filmmakers just don't know any better, or the filmmakers want to appeal to modern audiences. Good example - Titanic (1997), a girl from aristocratic background meets a poor boy and has sex with him the first night. Would that really have happened in the early 20th century?

[–] Charlot47 10 years ago

While war often leads to a loosening of sexual discipline, isn’t the sex in this film explicitly subversive? A way for oppressed young people to express themselves at a time when life was grim? If most other avenues are closed, you can at least enjoy each other?

But it is not just apolitical hedonism, for there is deliberate linking of sex and resistance. When the glamorous partisan Viktoria makes a man of young Miloš that night it empowers him to become the hero who blows up the German train next day.

PS For anybody who thinks Czech society and culture was comparable to that of Vermont, I suggest looking at films of Gustav Machaty like “Erotikon” from 1929 and “Ekstase” out in 1933. Or at least read about them here on IMDb

[–] Bob Pr. 10 years ago

....For anybody who thinks Czech society and culture was comparable to that of Vermont...

Lest anyone think that Vermont in the 1940s was Victorian (or earlier), let me say that when I got out of the Army at the end of WW-II, I drove a truck in Washington, D.C., for a couple years and found no more flexible moral standards among the girls I dated/went with there nor in Columbia, MO, where I went to university and dated/went with girls from Chicago, NYC, L.A., among other places. However, by 1950 things were, fortunately, beginning to change!

[–] michael-brooke-613-494546 9 years ago

It's probably also worth adding that although the novel was published in 1965, its author Bohumil Hrabal was born in 1914, and not only would he have been pretty much the same age as Milos Hrma in 1942, but he also worked as a railway dispatcher - so large parts of the novel are clearly autobiographical.

Granted, Hrabal was hardly an exemplar of strict realism - in fact, he's one of the unsung fathers of magical realism - but I had no difficulty accepting his portrait of the sexual mores of Czechs in 1942 as being accurate. In fact, you'll find some decidedly ribald writing about Czech mores in the work of a much older writer, Jaroslav Hasek, whose riotous 'The Good Soldier Svejjk' is one of the cornerstones of Czech literature and which was set during WWI.

[–] Jastrzebiec 10 years ago

To answer your Titanic question, YES. It probably happened once or twice.