Menzel was a member of the Czech New Wave cinema in the 1960s. His first feature film, "Closely Watched Trains", won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1967. The film was a World War II drama based on a book by Bohumil Hrabal. His film "Larks on a String" was filmed in 1969, but was banned by the Czechoslovakian government. It was finally released in 1990 after the fall of the Communist regime. The film won the Golden Bear at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival in 1990. The film was also based on a book by Bohumil Hrabal, and spoke about life in a re-education camp in Czechoslovakia under the communist rule.