Marketa Lazarová (1967)
(Marketa Lazarova)
Country: CZ
Technical: bw 162m
Director: Frantisek Vlácil
Cast: Josef Kemr, Magda Vásáryová, Frantisek Velecký
Synopsis:
In twelfth century Bohemia, brigands attack a caravan containing the Bishop of Hennau's son, whom they take hostage. Reprisals by the regional Captain spell chaos for local landowners, one of whose daughters, Marketa, is in turn abducted.
Review:
Divided into Parts and chapters, each one prefaced by suitably folkloric intertitles, this must count as one of the most confounding and elusive narratives to emerge from the artistic and political turmoil of the 1960s. Sequences break off mid-paragraph, much of the dialogue is spoken off camera, so it is unclear who is speaking, and the wealth of proper names are never quite granted exposition. In short, unless one is acquainted with the tale already, one is unlikely to have much of a hold over what goes on. Suffice it to say that an established medieval episode appears to have been commandeered for the purposes of an anti-clerical, proto-feminist tract. The results, aesthetically poised between contemporary reportage and some astonishingly dreamlike, deep-focus, sequences in ultra-closeup, or of travelling shots across snows, woods and marshes, against a declamatory soundtrack of disembodied Czech, make it second only to Jodorowsky's El Topo in its soporific fascination.
(Marketa Lazarova)
Country: CZ
Technical: bw 162m
Director: Frantisek Vlácil
Cast: Josef Kemr, Magda Vásáryová, Frantisek Velecký
Synopsis:
In twelfth century Bohemia, brigands attack a caravan containing the Bishop of Hennau's son, whom they take hostage. Reprisals by the regional Captain spell chaos for local landowners, one of whose daughters, Marketa, is in turn abducted.
Review:
Divided into Parts and chapters, each one prefaced by suitably folkloric intertitles, this must count as one of the most confounding and elusive narratives to emerge from the artistic and political turmoil of the 1960s. Sequences break off mid-paragraph, much of the dialogue is spoken off camera, so it is unclear who is speaking, and the wealth of proper names are never quite granted exposition. In short, unless one is acquainted with the tale already, one is unlikely to have much of a hold over what goes on. Suffice it to say that an established medieval episode appears to have been commandeered for the purposes of an anti-clerical, proto-feminist tract. The results, aesthetically poised between contemporary reportage and some astonishingly dreamlike, deep-focus, sequences in ultra-closeup, or of travelling shots across snows, woods and marshes, against a declamatory soundtrack of disembodied Czech, make it second only to Jodorowsky's El Topo in its soporific fascination.
(Marketa Lazarova)
Country: CZ
Technical: bw 162m
Director: Frantisek Vlácil
Cast: Josef Kemr, Magda Vásáryová, Frantisek Velecký
Synopsis:
In twelfth century Bohemia, brigands attack a caravan containing the Bishop of Hennau's son, whom they take hostage. Reprisals by the regional Captain spell chaos for local landowners, one of whose daughters, Marketa, is in turn abducted.
Review:
Divided into Parts and chapters, each one prefaced by suitably folkloric intertitles, this must count as one of the most confounding and elusive narratives to emerge from the artistic and political turmoil of the 1960s. Sequences break off mid-paragraph, much of the dialogue is spoken off camera, so it is unclear who is speaking, and the wealth of proper names are never quite granted exposition. In short, unless one is acquainted with the tale already, one is unlikely to have much of a hold over what goes on. Suffice it to say that an established medieval episode appears to have been commandeered for the purposes of an anti-clerical, proto-feminist tract. The results, aesthetically poised between contemporary reportage and some astonishingly dreamlike, deep-focus, sequences in ultra-closeup, or of travelling shots across snows, woods and marshes, against a declamatory soundtrack of disembodied Czech, make it second only to Jodorowsky's El Topo in its soporific fascination.