Here’s another Czech film and coincidentally it’s centered around the railways as well. As is so often the case, the shadow of the Second World War hangs heavily in this film and yet the specific event it is about, the expulsion of Germans just after the war in the face of the advancing Russians, is completely unknown to me. This made it difficult for me to understand what was going on and who all of the characters are. Nonetheless I can still appreciate enough of the personal story of the titular character to realize that this is a great film and the rotoscoped animation makes it uniquely beautiful as well.

In the middle of the night, a man illegally crosses the border into Czechoslovakia and is hunted by the authorities. Alois Nebel is in charge of the train station of Bílý Potok and pretends not to see the man at his station. His colleague Wachek however aggressively confronts the man and turns him in to the police. Wachek also uses his position to smuggle in goods to be sold at the bar owned by his father. Nebel watches impassively but the incident seems to trigger old traumas in him and he has a nervous breakdown. He remembers witnessing as a child the Germans being forced to leave on trains and how Wachek’s father violently participated in the forced expulsions. An unknown woman Dorothe figures prominently in his memories. He is admitted into a mental institution following his breakdown and actually finds himself together with the fugitive who is tortured for information. The fugitive later escapes, causing Nebel to be interrogated as well. When he is discharged from the hospital, he finds that Wachek has taken his job. Feeling lost, he goes to Prague to beg for his job, during a time when the country is undergoing major changes as Václav Havel takes power.

Nebel’s personal story is easy enough to understand and sympathize with but the larger context within which it takes place is all but indecipherable to non-Czechs. Not only would you need to know about the fall of Communism in 1989, you’d also need to know about the forced expulsions in the post-World War 2 period. More specifically, many of the deported Germans ended up in forced labor camps in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe as part of Germany’s reparations for the war. Presumably Dorothe was one of the many who died in those camps. I never knew about any of this before watching this and later making the effort to read up on it. I can appreciate what a masterful film this is retrospectively after learning all this, including the corruption and unrestrained money-making after the fall of Communism and Nebel’s mixed feelings about all of the changes that are turning his previous perfectly ordered life upside down. It would have been nice if this film provided at least a little of this context but it doesn’t. I suspect that director Tomáš Luňák thought that it could get away with this because this is an adaptation of a comic book trilogy and presumably anyone watching this would already be familiar with the story.

I’m not sure how much of the art was drawn and how much of it was filmed and then traced over, but the effect is undeniably impressive and by far the best example of rotoscoped animation I’ve ever seen. Most uses of the technique seem to be mostly interested in capturing lifelike faces and fluid body movements and skimps over the world around the characters. This is not at all the case here as the images capture the objects, trains and buildings in the smallest detail in order to really transport the viewer to the period. The imagery of railways, including specific models of engines and the architecture of train stations, figure prominently, letting you know how this is Nebel’s entire world and how lost he is without it. He even memorizes and recites train schedules as a way to calm himself, and this kind of detailed character building ensures that the film remains a deeply personal story even as it grapples with larger issues.

It’s still a pity that the film makes so little effort to provide more background. Even a preface in writing wouldn’t have helped. As I had to look up further information only after finishing the film, this could not help but diminish my appreciation of it while actually watching. I can see that the film is masterfully made and its subject is indeed a worthy one but anyone who isn’t Czech will have a hard time fully engaging with it.