Marketa Lazarová (1967)
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In 1968, Czechoslovak critics voted a medieval epic the greatest Czech film ever made, and international audiences barely got the chance to see it. The film took nearly three years to shoot, in ice and snow, on a scale nobody in the Eastern Bloc was attempting.
MARKETA LAZAROVÁ (1967) follows two rival clans in 13th century Bohemia, the outlaw family of Kozlík and the landowner Lazar, dragged into conflict with a German king whose son they hold hostage. Mikoláš, one of Kozlík's sons, is sent to press Lazar into an alliance. When persuasion fails, he abducts Lazar's daughter Marketa on the eve of her vows to become a nun.
František Vláčil directed from Vladislav Vančura's novel, a text so dense with archaic Czech that generations of readers considered it unfilmable. Vláčil shot it anyway, in black and white, with a cast including Josef Kemr as Kozlík and Magda Vášáryová in the title role.
The result is brutal and hallucinatory, closer to Norse saga than costume drama. Faith, violence, and desire collide without any modern comfort softening the blow. It remains a landmark of Czechoslovak New Wave cinema, and one of the starkest visions of the medieval world ever put on film.
Physical media
Part of Classiques du cinéma tchèque
About the film
Putting the ‘dark’ back in the Dark Ages.
- Directed by
- František Vláčil
- Runtime
- 166 minutes
- Released
- November 24, 1967
- US theatrical
- August 30, 1974
- Certification
- +16
- Country
- Czechoslovakia
- Starring
- František Velecký (Mikoláš, Kozlík's son), Magda Vášáryová (Marketa Lazarová, Lazar's daughter), Ivan Palúch (Adam
More credits
- Genres
- Drama, History
- Language
- Czech
- Origin
- XC
- Studios
- Filmové studio Barrandov
- Written by
- Vladislav Vančura, František Pavlíček, František Vláčil
- Produced by
- Erich Švabík
- Cinematography
- Bedřich Baťka
- Music
- Zdeněk Liška
- Also starring
- Kozlík's one-armed son), Pavla Polášková (Alexandra, Kozlík's daughter), Vlastimil Harapes (Kristián, son of Bishop of Hennau), Michal Kožuch (Lazar, Kozlík's rival), Josef Kemr (Kozlík, Lazar's rival), Naďa Hejná (Kateřina, Kozlík's wife), Jaroslav Moučka (Jan, Kozlík's son), Zdeněk Kutil (Reiner, Bishop of Hennau's Valet)
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Phenomenal movie.
I own this movie.
Fantastic. Interesting time structure.
Reminds me of ‘Andrei Rublev’ and the more recent ‘Hard to Be a God’.
Even though ‘Hard to Be a God’ is science-fiction, they’re all black and white epics set in medieval like times.
Brilliant film! A little hard to follow tbh, like Andrey Rubëv. I read somewhere that the cast basically lived in the woods like medieval brigands during filming.
Hands down, one of the greatest movies I have ever seen.
I absolutely love this! In my top five all time greats. Nothing else quite like it.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are two types of film viewers in the world: the lucky ones who know this amazing movie, and the ones who don’t.
whoa, want to see!!! –she looks remarkably clean and groomed for 13th century conditions–
Jill Chamberlain Cooke It’s symbolic. Otherwise an extremely mucky and gritty film. The crew lived in very spartan condition.
I saw his other medieval piece, Valley of the Bees years before Marketa Lazarova. It’s also excellent.
Beda Batka, the cinematographer, was my professor at NYU Grad School in the late 60s. He was terrific. He would recount many crazy stories about the production of “Marketa.” For example, the wolves that hunted Kozlík’s clan were actually the German Shepherd/wolf hybrids that the Soviets used to patrol the border. I projected the 35mm print of the film at NYU numerous times; it was the one that he took with him when he “escaped” from Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia. He was the head of Barrandov Studio and the Soviets were not pleased with his departure which may account for why this film didn’t get the wide-spread viewing it should have at the time. Decades later, “Marketa” was shown at the San Francisco Film Festival, so I went to see it. I was absolutely convinced it was the same 35mm print I used to project because I knew where all the scratches were! 😉
Crown jewel of the Czech cinematography and hidden gem of World film.
Dizzying epic!