Closely Observed Trains (Ostre sledované vlaky)
Don't be beguiled by the apparent simplicity of Menzel's quirky comedy about the travails of a young railway clerk who embarks on his career, just as the second world war is drawing to a close.
Beneath, or behind the fluff, are some serious observations about our interaction with the world around us, our place in the world, and the way in which the absurd minutiae of our everyday lives provide an almost comic relief to the issues affecting the world in which we live, from which it is impossible to shield ourselves.
While the sexual gags are dated, and a scene in which a rabbit is killed might disturb some, it is nevertheless a most worthy film.
Closely Observed Trains won the Best Foreign Film award: a bittersweet achievement, given that it signified the apex of the Czech new wave, and was followed by a period of cinematic censorship.
Fellow Czech filmmaker Milos Forman fled the communist invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and went on to make films such as One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
What would Menzel have done, had he not been inhibited by the political climate that dominated Czechoslovakia at the time?