Monday, March 14, 2011

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A book, a movie and a love that endures: Closely Watched Trains on



By Rubén Darío
Higuera Special to The Social Communication Moviola





I saw for the first time in 2004, a September night in a room dark. I remember the date exactly because large gatherings, as well as the great loves are unforgettable. The room was full of young women, mostly students. I was there to do what I used to do as a student of music and gradually lost my irresponsibility of wanting to be a pianist: he saw film. I saw every day. I had gotten used to it thanks to a temporary illness that left me in bed for two months and with which, for my own good, according to some doctors, it was desirable to rest, so that I recommended be absent from the books and reading. So, without further remedy, I yielded to the movies. A day watching films, four, six, even got to see eight in a single day. Well I remember it in the morning with Bresson Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) and the brilliant A à mort s'est condamner échappé (1957) already on the brink of half-day Sunset Boulevard (1950) by Billy Wilder, film which has emerged an alliance indestructible, despite years and I have kept the faith. At this point in the day, my desire to go to the library for a book were too strong, but my mother's constant surveillance, intelligent as it is, that love was preventing harm me. One day, I remember well, he said he began to read stories until the headache was appeased, and she brought, I do not know from which library, a beautiful copy of the complete short stories of Nabokov. And so I started again my relationship with literature, that bad lover that I have not heard nor have I ever wanted a separation. But back again, let's end this day my eyes affixed to the utter amazement one day in front of the TV screen I got up without a moment of my bed. The fourth film was Wild at Heart (1990), controversial for me pure, American director David Lynch. The thing is, so I continued all afternoon and much of the night, and so I got to know this universe of lights, sound tracks and plans, which I, very wrongly, was unknown, because I had always refused to film a reason I'm still ignorant. That afternoon I discovered the culprit of my chain with the seventh art: Jean Luc Godard. I saw four of his films: Le petit soldat (1963), Vivre sa vie (1962), with the tears that I discovered my first film and the real enchantment become a man who knows what else, Bande à part (1964), film that I fell in love with the impossible: Anna Karina, À bout de souffle (1960), with which I cursed the impossible love and potential, and I discovered the poetry is, you can be, even in the eyes of a woman.
So you see no more, that September night I was immersed, and, in one of my addictions, less strong, of course, because there is another (that bad lover) has begun to age and steal my dream. And then I saw for the first time, full of grace, humor, tragic comedy. Your name: Closely Watched Trains (1966). Its director Jiri Menzel. I immediately fell in love with the first images and the voice of a young man whose name is Milos HRMA, but I fell in love with his desire, I projected that mirror without vanity or anxiety, Milos HRMA wanted, like their ancestors, do anything except be in a platform and avoid making signs, so, every effort, while others have to push and sweat, so the young Milos attends a course of transport for train driver. Pass images, the story goes, a simple story in a context of war, because in this country where things happen, the Nazis, that cancer of savagery and daring, they are invading. A war is fought the second world which the characters just come to learn because of the lumpen scenario in which they work, a remote station, tiny and insignificant.
But Closely Watched Trains (Ed. in 1965) is also a book, a beautiful novel by Bohumil Hrabal, a man who always left captivated by the simple things in life, doing a literature clean, without pomposity or excessive has been, by Milan Kundera, one of the greatest exponents of Czech literature in the second half of the twentieth century. While reading this novel, the reader can not separate the comedy never goes into the train station where we meet colorful characters that draw, accurately the human misery and each of the individuals in the midst of a war. A station manager who raises pigeons on the roof of their workplace; Habička a man who delights in the admiration of the female body and, while go talk to them, is philosophically, weaving and unraveling their loves and its very existence, a telegraph attractive and awkward, a narrator (the same film Milos) who delivered the discovery of the pleasures of life, from the quiet of a season, knows the misery loving and sexual illusion becomes his torment.
The book came years later, after several attempts, all futile, to find it in bookstores in my city. I never gave up. Recently a woman (women Oh! And favors) traveled to Argentina and I recommended the book there, I said, was security. And he was, he found it in a bookstore not too close to the place where he slept. He sought, found and is now in my hands. I will never stop thanking him. Hrabal I had to read before and was sure he would not rest until it acquires its critics say, his best novel. I read it too loud a solitude (1977), and the fascinating work of blind Legends and romances (Ed. 2000) of which I have never heard or read any criticism, thank God. You know those who know me, that few, if I do not do, rather scornfully, critics, nor do I have in mind his comments raised by the lack of skill. Hrabal I read and I liked it so much as when I discovered the film by Jiri Menzel. From them I learned shortly thereafter that artistic collaborations have become more than the film adaptation of Closely Watched Trains, Hrabal's novel. I knew then of the existence of another film, Larks on a Wire (1959), it had to do with an account book belonging to announce a house where I do not want to live (1965) of the Czech writer, and I found also the film adaptation of a of the finest novels of Hrabal, I Served the King of England (1982). Another one and I could not be separated, Menzel taught me that you can make films with political reporting pompous fantasy of love in a dark room, and Bohumil Hrabal gave me one of the most treasured teachings from the first day I had his book in my hands, which often works great both as the most attractive beauty, no makeup. And one, much as the other, taught me to be happy in sadness or better, which should be happy in it.

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