Closely Watched Trains

Closely Watched Trains is a 1966 screenplay by Czech writer and director Jiří Menzel. Part of the New Wave movement in Czechoslovakian literature and film, characterized by dark humor and surreal dialogue and events, it concerns a young man who lives in Czechoslovakia during World War II. The story is an absurdist portrait of the coming-of-age of the man, Miloš Hrma, who works at a train station under German occupation. With his distinctive Czech affinity for irony and rebellion, Miloš uses his job to subvert social expectations and undermine the Nazi occupiers. The screenplay is an adaptation of Ostře sledované vlaky, a 1965 novel by Bohumil Hrabal.

At the beginning of the story, Miloš has just taken up a job as a railway station guard in Czechoslovakia. He comes from a family of social misfits and people known for expertly avoiding work. As the Nazi occupation tightens its grip on the country, Miloš is ambivalent about his new position. He likes the superficial significance of having a uniform, and is excited to find new ways to avoid actually doing work. His boss, the self-absorbed supervisor of the train station, is also an eccentric pigeon-breeder. Though his wife is compassionate and kind, he resents one of his employees, Hubička, because he is able to effortlessly charm many women. Miloš develops a crush on another conductor, Máša. Hubička suspects it and, after investigating, realizes that Miloš has never dated anyone.

All goes well at the railway station, despite the atrocities being committed in Czechoslovakia and beyond. The peace is finally disturbed when Zednicek, a Czech councillor who is allied with the Nazis, comes to the station with the intent of convincing the staff to join Hitler. Máša makes a move on Miloš, but their sexual encounter goes comically awry when Miloš prematurely ejaculates. The following day, out of shame and embarrassment, he tries to kill himself, but is saved by someone passing by. A doctor advises that he find a woman who is more experienced at having sex. He teaches him how to avoid premature ejaculations by thinking of something other than sex while in the act.



Hubička takes an interest in the young woman in charge of the telegraphs, Zdenička. He stamps her butt with the telegraph office’s rubber stamp. When Zdenička returns home, her mother sees the marks, and angrily calls Hubička’s boss about her daughter’s vulgar coworkers. The event becomes highly public, and prevents the stationmaster from receiving his due promotion. Meanwhile, the Nazis and their allies are getting worried because many of their trains are frequently under attack. A famous member of the Resistance, the former circus member who goes by the pseudonym Viktoria Freie, sends a bomb to Hubička and enlists him to use it to destroy a train carrying Nazi ammunition rounds. Hubička asks that in return, Viktoria helps Miloš have sex without ejaculating prematurely.

The following day, as the ammunition train approaches the station, Zednicek pulls Hubička into a pointless disciplinary meeting based on his branding of Zdenička’s buttocks. Miloš takes up the heroic job of destroying the train, empowered by his sexual awakening facilitated by Viktoria. He drops the bomb from atop a railway-signaling apparatus that crosses high over the tracks. It hits the train just as a man operating a machine gun fires at Miloš, killing him instantly. His body falls off the gantry and onto the train. At the same moment, Zednicek finishes his disciplinary meeting with a general insult fired at the Czech: that they are “laughing hyenas” with no care for order or leadership - the phrase refers to a real insult used by Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich during World War II. He immediately receives karmic justice in the form of a chain of explosions that obliterates the train, killing everyone onboard and destroying the Nazis’ ammunitions. Hubička and the other station employees laugh at the damage that has been done to the Nazi occupation. Máša, on her own, picks up Miloš's cap, which escaped the train’s blast, and mourns his death. Closely Watched Trains is therefore the opposite of a fatalist plot, showing how its characters’ actions do not lead to predictable moral or existential outcomes.