By now, this burly, seething musk ox of a movie, arguably the most convincing film about the Middle Ages ever made, should be on everyone's tongue.
Essentially cinema non grata everywhere until the Czechs restored it and voted it their national Best Ever in 1998, Frantisek Vlacil's elliptical nightmare about warring medieval tribes in the Bohemian highlands has been undergoing a global re-evaluation, traveling with a Vlacil retro in 2002 and eventually video showcases all over.
Newcomers will be dazzled and baffled in turn; Vlacil's strategy of adapting Vladislav Vancura's apparently untranslatable novel was to craft an impressionistic odyssey that elides just as much narrative information as it imparts.
Get distracted worrying about narrative clarity, however...
Essentially cinema non grata everywhere until the Czechs restored it and voted it their national Best Ever in 1998, Frantisek Vlacil's elliptical nightmare about warring medieval tribes in the Bohemian highlands has been undergoing a global re-evaluation, traveling with a Vlacil retro in 2002 and eventually video showcases all over.
Newcomers will be dazzled and baffled in turn; Vlacil's strategy of adapting Vladislav Vancura's apparently untranslatable novel was to craft an impressionistic odyssey that elides just as much narrative information as it imparts.
Get distracted worrying about narrative clarity, however...
- 2/26/2014
- Village Voice
"I think the point about Marketa Lazarova is that when you first see it you're confused, and by that I mean you know that the whole story of what you're looking at is obscured, but it's still there, but you have to look hard." Peter Hames (film historian) Quick, name a Czechoslovakian film or film director... I would expect most of you are either drawing a blank or shouting out Milos Forman. The reason I ask is because on the back of Criterion's new Blu-ray release of Marketa Lazarova it reads, "In its native land, Frantisek Vlacil's Marketa Lazarova has been hailed as the greatest Czech film ever made; for many U.S. viewers, it will be a revelation." I can't speak to the first part of that statement as I believe this was the first, bonafide Czech film I've ever seen, but the second rings true. When it comes to Czech cinema,...
- 6/10/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: June 18, 2013
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
In its home country, František Vlácil’s 1967 historical drama-romance Marketa Lazarová has been hailed as the greatest Czech film ever made; for many U.S. viewers, it will be a revelation.
Based on a novel by Vladislav Vancura, this stirring and poetic depiction of a feud between two rival medieval clans is a fierce, epic, and meticulously designed evocation of the clashes between Christianity and paganism, humankind and nature, love and violence.
Vlácil’s approach was to re-create the textures and mentalities of a long-ago way of life, rather than to make a conventional historical drama, and the result is as harrowing as it is dazzling. With its inventive widescreen cinematography, editing, and sound design, Marketa Lazarová can best be described as an experimental action film—and we haven’t seen many of those!
Presented in Czech and German with English subtitles,...
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
In its home country, František Vlácil’s 1967 historical drama-romance Marketa Lazarová has been hailed as the greatest Czech film ever made; for many U.S. viewers, it will be a revelation.
Based on a novel by Vladislav Vancura, this stirring and poetic depiction of a feud between two rival medieval clans is a fierce, epic, and meticulously designed evocation of the clashes between Christianity and paganism, humankind and nature, love and violence.
Vlácil’s approach was to re-create the textures and mentalities of a long-ago way of life, rather than to make a conventional historical drama, and the result is as harrowing as it is dazzling. With its inventive widescreen cinematography, editing, and sound design, Marketa Lazarová can best be described as an experimental action film—and we haven’t seen many of those!
Presented in Czech and German with English subtitles,...
- 3/28/2013
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Errol Morris, London
The esteem in which this documentarian is held can be judged by the people interviewing him on stage: BBC Storyville producer Nick Fraser, Adam Curtis, Franny Armstrong and the Guardian's Xan Brooks. Each Q&A is preceded by a screening of Morris's latest, Tabloid, which marks a return to his eccentric terrain after recent films on Abu Ghraib (Standard Operating Procedure) and the Vietnam war (The Fog Of War). Tabloid revisits the very British scandal of Joyce McKinney, a Wyoming beauty queen who allegedly kidnapped and sexually enslaved her beau – or did she rescue him from the Mormons? Morris gives us the story from all sides.
Brixton Ritzy, SW2, Sat; Bafta, W1, Sun; Gate Notting Hill, W11; Screen On The Green, N1, Tue
French Film Festival, On tour
There's a tinge of nostalgia to the festival's big draws this year. Special guest Daniel Auteuil harks back to...
The esteem in which this documentarian is held can be judged by the people interviewing him on stage: BBC Storyville producer Nick Fraser, Adam Curtis, Franny Armstrong and the Guardian's Xan Brooks. Each Q&A is preceded by a screening of Morris's latest, Tabloid, which marks a return to his eccentric terrain after recent films on Abu Ghraib (Standard Operating Procedure) and the Vietnam war (The Fog Of War). Tabloid revisits the very British scandal of Joyce McKinney, a Wyoming beauty queen who allegedly kidnapped and sexually enslaved her beau – or did she rescue him from the Mormons? Morris gives us the story from all sides.
Brixton Ritzy, SW2, Sat; Bafta, W1, Sun; Gate Notting Hill, W11; Screen On The Green, N1, Tue
French Film Festival, On tour
There's a tinge of nostalgia to the festival's big draws this year. Special guest Daniel Auteuil harks back to...
- 11/5/2011
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
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