I watched Closely Watched Train of Jiri Menzel today morning. (The actual title of the film is Strictly Watched Train; also the actual title of yesterday’s Menzel film is Snow Drop Festivities, not Snow Drop Festival.) It was a much-expected film for me – and for many others as was obvious from the large number of people thronged Sree theatre, the smallest among the theatres for this festival. But I must confess that the film did not live up to my expectations; perhaps because it is an old film (made in 1966) and my expectations were contemporary. I was expecting a satirical roller-coaster like the films of Louis Bunuel and Emir Kusturica. But the film is somewhat laid-back for a large part and suddenly burst into life towards the latter part. Nevertheless, it is satirical movie, dealing with the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. The film portrays the incidents in a railway station, where the protagonist comes to join as am official. He is suffering from a peculiar problem: he has not made love yet.
The mood is quite relaxed in IFFK today. The signature film was, deservedly, booed today. It is actually the butt of many jokes. My take is that it is a demonstration of symptoms of Chikungunya, a disease that affected many people recently in Kerala.
Now I am going to watch Talk to Her by Pedro Almodovar in New Theatre. Hopefully, I will get seat, as Buddha Collapsed in Shame (in Ajantha theatre) by Hana Makhmakbaf appears to be the favorite of most of the people.
2 comments:
Jiří Menzel became famous in 1967, when his first feature film Closely Watched Trains (based on the novel by Hrabal) won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
His film Larks on a String was filmed in 1969, but was initially banned by the Czech government. It was finally released in 1990 after the fall of the Communist regime.
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