Marketa Lazarová

MON May 17 2:00 pm Konvikt / film hall / free admission

MARKETA LAZAROVÁ
Czechoslovakia 1967

director František Vláčil
screenplay František Pavlíček, František Vláčil
based on the novel by Vladislav Vančura
director of photography Bedřich Baťka
editor Miroslav Hájek
music Zdeněk Liška
cast Magda Vášáryová, Josef Kemr, Naďa Hejná, Jaroslav Moučka, František Velecký,
Karel Vašíček, Ivan Palúch, Václav Sloup, Zdeněk Řehoř, Vladimír Menšík, Karla Chadimová

 

This monumental poetic film epic with challenging visual and semantic subtexts is a congenial version of the eponymous fiction work by the Czech writer Vladislav Vančura, a piece up to that time considered unfit for film adaptation. The story takes place in the mid 13th century at the time when marauding hordes ambush travellers along royal highways, when Christianity is still waging war on belief in pagan gods and human life has no meaning whatsoever. But love was as much intoxicating then as it is now... This is what the heroine Marketa Lazarová learns when she is to be engaged to God and spend the rest of her life in the safe haven of a monastery, but instead, she is kidnapped by the highwayman gang of the rival Kozlík family. Among the merciless riff-raff, she surprisingly finds love and humbleness alongside humiliation.

The director purposely renounces any kind of form that would make it easy for the modern viewer to understand the plot, winding down all possible notions of history. The 13th-century world is shown in a way that lacks stylization, in its entire viciousness and vulgarity which however does not contradict great emotions or huge sacrifices. One may possibly say that it is an overcomplicated film demanding unceasing viewer attention. But at the same time, it is an extraordinarily beautiful movie overflowing with a strange kind of poetry...