Rail Yard Blues

Running time: 90 mins

A quietly involving film that asks the question?what happens when nothing happens? The answer is?everything happens. Life happens.

In a quiet out-of-the-way rail yard in the Czech Republic things are pretty much as they always have been: whether they?re late or whether they?re on time, trains come, trains go; people do their jobs; coffee gets made, beer gets drunk, time passes; people get to know one another, fall in or out of love. Sometimes the boss even comes around. Not too often, thank goodness, but sometimes.

It is July now, hot, lazy, and time for vacation. Who is going to Greece this year, and with whom? Is someone seeing someone he/she shouldn?t? And has anybody seen Franta?

Carefully paced, closely observed, wonderfully written, perfectly acted by a seamless ensemble, and with beautifully framed widescreen photography, there is something quintessentially Czech in this rail yard pastoral about a small group of people taking part in ?the delicate choreography of life and labor? (Eddie Cockrell, Variety). ?Faced with the prospect of change, a laugh and a shrug greet the inevitable.?


Charlie Cockey

GLOBAL LANDSCAPES