01
The Firemen's Ball
Why this pick
Like Closely Watched Trains, it turns provincial ritual into sly, humane absurdity, letting comic incompetence gradually reveal a sharper view of collective cowardice.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1966 1h 33m CZE
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Closely Watched Trains
ComedyDrama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Closely Watched Trains, try these.
01
02
Larks on a String
Why this pick
Menzel again pairs gentle erotic comedy and eccentric working life with the quiet pressure of political repression, in an ensemble that stays playful and tender.
03
The Shop on Main Street
Why this pick
Its small-town wartime setting similarly finds history pressing in on an ordinary, reluctant man; the tone begins with wry intimacy before becoming deeply affecting.
04
Capricious Summer
Why this pick
For the film’s deadpan charm and fondness for male vanity, this languidly comic Menzel tale offers another precisely observed world of routines, flirtation, and dignified foolishness.
05
Divided We Fall
Why this pick
This Czech wartime tragicomedy balances domestic awkwardness, sexual complication, and escalating moral danger with the same ability to make ordinary people feel vulnerable and vividly human.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
The young Miloš Hrma, who speaks with misplaced pride of his family of misfits and Wiktionary:malinger#English, is engaged as a newly trained station guard in a small railway station during the Second World War and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. He admires himself in his new uniform, and looks forward, like his prematurely retired railwayman father, to avoiding real work. The sometimes pompous stationmaster is an enthusiastic pigeon-breeder with a kind wife, but is envious of the train dispatcher Hubička's success with women. Miloš holds an as-yet platonic love for the pretty, young conductor Máša. The experienced Hubička presses for details of their relationship and realizes that Miloš is still a virgin.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Naďa Urbánková
Victoria Freie
Jiří Menzel
Dr. Brabec
Libuše Havelková
Max's wife
Josef Somr
Train dispatcher Hubicka
Vlastimil Brodský
Counselor Zednicek