Marketa Lazarová

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Film Description

Set in the 13th Century, this ambitious and multi-layered medieval epic with its nearly three-hour length, elliptical narrative and emphasis on symbol and metaphor, is a stunning work of cinema. Filmed in black & white widescreen and often attaining a Wellesian grandeur, Vlácil penetrated the psychology of the times to produce an inspired and fascinating film. Markéta Lazarová has been voted by Czech and Slovak critics and artists as the best Czech film of all time.

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Review by Michael Brooke on 7th November 2007

What's the best Czech film ever made? Ask a British film buff and the chances are they'd plump for Closely Observed Trains, or something by Miloš Forman or Jan Švankmajer. But if you ask a Czech (and this was indeed the outcome of a 1998 poll), they'd be far more likely to nominate František Vlácil's Marketa Lazarová. If you've never heard of it, you're in good company: it was passed over for British distribution in 1967 because big-budget widescreen medieval epics didn't fit the accepted wisdom that Czech films were quirky, low-key affairs. By contrast, this is the Czechs' Seven Samurai, their Seventh Seal, their Virgin Spring and their Andrei Rublev, and, remarkably, proves fully worthy of the comparison. Running nearly three hours, it sounds straightforward on paper (essentially, it follows the fortunes of a rebel clan that falls foul of the authorities), but proves anything but in practice. Vlácil's overwhelmingly visual approach, his highly mobile camera often adopting a first-person viewpoint, is bewildering at first, thrusting us back seven centuries and into the middle of a violent confrontation without so much as a by-your-leave. However, as the film progresses, the vast scale of Vlácil's ambition becomes clearer. There's a surfeit of Christian and pagan imagery (with some startlingly erotic sequences that the BBFC of 1967 might have baulked at passing), a constant threat posed by the natural world (the pre-credit sequence shows a pack of wolves running across the snowy wastes), and an overwhelming physicality borne of years of obsessive research (Vlácil even made his cast live like their characters while filming). Marketa herself is the blonde, virginal daughter of the wily merchant Lazar. Although kidnapped by the rebellious Kozlík clan in revenge for her father's activities, her love for Mikoláš Kozlík is genuine - albeit inevitably doomed in a world that fully lives up to Hobbes' despairing definition of men's lives as "nasty, brutish and short". Marketa Lazarová is a thrilling rediscovery, one of the most convincing depictions of the medieval era ever captured on film, and currently the most exciting entry in Second Run's ever-adventurous DVD catalogue.

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Article - "Marketa Lazarová: notes after a first viewing" by Graeme Hobbs
Friday 7th December 2007

The lamb of god wandered through the mud of the early spring thaw and into an encampment, where it was slaughtered and eaten; eaten even by its own shepherd while he was drunk. Bereft, the shepherd then stumbled to the hills where he followed the bleats of an escapin...  View article in full

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This film is part of the following Film Collections

Second Run DVDs

Including: A Long Weekend In Pest And Buda, Another Way, Audition / Talent Competition, Avenge But One of My Two Eyes, Black Sun (2005), Blissfully Yours, David Holzmans Diary & My Girlfriends Wedding, Every Little Thing, In The Land Of The Deaf, Interrogation.

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A plan for holiday viewing by Kevin Mullen

As everyone flees the city for the holidays in December I go into seclusion and catch up on some film viewing. I start compiling a list in the autumn and then take to the sofa to indulge in cinematic delights, without distractions, apart from phone calls from friends who are concerned I might be slipping into insanity from over indulgence. These are my thoughts on what to watch this year.

Graeme Hobbs's Films of the Year 2007 by Graeme Hobbs

With outstanding releases this year of films long absent or never before seen on dvd (Masters of Cinema and Second Run deserve particular commendation here), as well as some fine additions to silent cinema on dvd (such as the BFI’s A Throw of the Dice), 2007 has been a really gratifying year for those who appreciate quality films on dvd, not least because of wonderful titles that seem to have appeared out of the blue – Gary Tarn’s Black Sun is an example of this. Also, I must mention the latest in the American Folk Blues series of dvds, the British Tours 1963-66. It’s incredible to have this footage at all and I’m very grateful.

Michael Brooke's Films of the Year 2007 by Michael Brooke

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