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| Tookey's Review |
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| Cast |
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| Released: |
1966 |
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| Genre: |
WAR
DRAMA
RITES-OF-PASSAGE
FOREIGN
ROMANCE
COMEDY
WORLD WAR II
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| Origin: |
Czechoslovakia |
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| Length: |
92 |
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A young railway trainee (Vaclav Neckar, pictured left) learns about life, love and premature ejaculation with the stationmaster’s wife.
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Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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Writer-director Jiri Menzel’s bitter-sweet 1966 comedy used World War II as the backdrop for a rites-of-passage film, and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film - not least because it caught the optimism of the the brief period in which it was actually made, Dubcek’s Prague Spring. It’s quite a slight film and its political aspect - when the hero is invited to join the resistance - almost gets lost in the parochial detail and personal (extremely personal) sides of the story, but it has great charm. Menzel also manages one of the most difficult tricks a director can bring off: a sudden darkening of tone towards the end, when heart-warming comedy turns into sombre tragedy. And the acting is superb throughout.
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