Marketa Lazarova [1967] - DVD ( - Dir: Frantisek Vlacil)

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Customer Reviews of Marketa Lazarova [1967]

T-Bomb
London, UK
23rd November 2008

Let's not get carried away
Firstly, I'll start by saying that I found this film astonishing on an aesthetic level. The imagery is remarkable, the sound design and score are faultless (in terms of the musical soundtrack, something that was so often a feature of European cinema from the mid-fifties onwards, with the ascension of avant-garde classical music across the continent). It is also well acted, stunningly realised and kinetically edited. It is well worth three hours of your time.

But....

There seems to be a tendency at the moment to reclaim lost masterworks of world cinema, and to compare them to the Canon - to The Seventh Seal, to Andrei Rublev or Stalker, to Forman or Polanski or Kurosawa. This shows a real enthusiasm for this kind of cinema, certainly. But I don't think it's very instructive. The great weakness about this film is that its narrative is relatively weak, and the characters undeveloped.

Not that the narrative isn't at times creatively and skillfully handled - It is true that Marketa Lazarova often utilises narrative ellipses as an interesting device - a scene occurs, and you lose any sense of what it has in fact shown you, until it is re-examined in a later chapter which sheds light on to its actual meaning, and lets the viewer restructure events once again into their chronological order. Thus it can become confusing, only to become clearer twenty minutes on. I found this a remarkable device in one particular scene.

Yet despite these devices, and no matter how much powerful allegorical or symbolic imagery its director skillfully conjures up, its still embellishing a fairly routine narrative. And yes, it can be linked to Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, Sergio Leone's bombastic aesthetics (both image and sound), and Ingmar Bergman (at his most austere), but the weakness of the narrative lets it down a little, and the lack of any real substance (save for a muddled introduction of Paganism vs Christianity) becomes really apparent after two hours or so...

It's highly watchable European cinema. But at times I did feel like I was watching a more brutal version of Robin Hood or The Vikings directed by an aesthetic master. No great themes are really tackled here - and that was surely the most important element of the best of fifties and sixties European film-making. Nit-picking, I know. And it's difficult to know how much the sub-titling lets it down, as often there is clearly dialogue that is not being translated. But I expected a lot, and this work, voted the best Czech film of all time, didn't quite deliver.

mgcs
Newcastle, UK
8th August 2008

A Remarkable Find
I do not know why this film doesn't appear more often in the standard lists of great and top movies - what a treat to find a totally overlooked gem. Yes it's in black and white, subtitled, is self-consciously arty and worthy, and has a complex construction - but then the best things often need that extra bit of effort. I suppose this sort of sits close to Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev or The Seventh Seal, but is totally on its own as an experience. Where it really pulls you in is in not just being about the 13th Century, but in recreating it in exact detail - both its brutal glory and the sense of magic and belief and faith - feeling so real and true, and conjuring up a whole way of seeing and believing. The story is about rival clans - fighting between themselves and the state, and the consequences of a raid on some wealthy German travellers. Simple things - like snapping a broken sword and keeping the hilt after a fight...stealing horses but not being able to feed them, somehow give it an almost documentary edge - a truth. And of course, being high art, we get astonishing and haunting scenes and images too - stirring you on an even deeper level.
Expect the sights, sounds and feelings of this epic achievement to stay with you long after the final image.

Markus Gossas
Stockholm, Sweden
14th January 2008

Hypnotic
This movie from 1967, set in the 12th century, is very hypnotic due to it's vivid images (mixing wide screen landscapes, extreme close ups and moving camera), different modes of narrative (text tableaus, voice, flashbacks, memories) and eerie middle age-like music (it's actually electronic music with voices created specifically for the movie).

In this movie there are no clear cut good vs evil and no typical villains and heroes (maybe for the exception of Marketa Lazarova herself who has some saint-like innocence). The people are more the products of the harsh social and religious environment of the dark ages. The plot is better experienced than talked about in advance. Haunting, complex and spell-binding, this is a very good movie, much better than the historic epics produced by hollywood every year.

The transfer is excellent (I watched it on a projector) with beautiful black/white (it's hard to think of this movie being made in colour).
This is the kind of movie that can be watched again. There is no commentary which would have been nice, but the booklet is informative. Second Run has made a fantastic job making this 40 year old movie look like new.

At the price of £8 it's extremely good value for money. Highly recommended!

HJ
London UK
9th January 2008

Astounding Czech Cinema
Set in 13th century, a small group of characters are caught up in the violent feud between two neighbouring clans, two rival warlords. A young woman, Marketa, negotiates the morality of this brutal yet sensual medieval world.
Apparently Marketa Lazarova is generally agreed to be the best ever Czech film - in Czechoslovakia that is. Outside Czechoslovakia both film & director fell into neglect. To be honest I hadn't heard of this film until recently. Indeed to non-Czechs it is a perplexing film - it purports to be an "authentic" depiction of the middle ages but is not based on authentic folk tales but on an experimental modernist novel from 1930s, and the film itself was not really part of Czech new wave and yet is an extreme example of 1960s European art house style: strange camera angles, elaborate tracking shots, freeze frames, rapid cut editing etc. The narrative is very fragmented, more or less a series of random episodes containing scenes which move back & forth in time. The director was a disciple of Eisenstein & the "poetic" montage of both image and sound is incredibly complex. I had difficulty following the film and at nearly 3 hours it sometimes got a bit wearying on first viewing - I couldn't help but think I should be watching it on a really big screen in a cinema.
Nonetheless, the film does undoubtedly have an impact even on DVD - films like this simply aren't made anymore - & I've ended up watching it several times already. The cinematography is unbelievable & there are numerous extraordinary scenes - the various scenes with wolves are particularly memorable. I suppose the film belongs to that "middle ages genre" popularised by Bergman (Seventh Seal, Virgin Spring) and the Japanese (Rashomon, Sansho), but the most useful comparison I could make to anyone reading this would be with Andrei Rubliev - if you liked Tarkovsky's film you really ought to see this.
Yet another revelatory East European classic from Second Run DVD. Informative essay by Peter Hames included in booklet.

Phoust
Kent, England
15th December 2007

Superb Second Run release. Do not miss this opportunity
Frantisek Vlacil directed "Marketa Lazarova" in 1967 during a two year shoot and was adapted from the avant-garde novel by author and 1930's film director Vladislav Vancura. Set in the 13th century it is a tale of to warring clans and the eventual doomed love of Marketa and Mikolas which leads one to draw comparisons to Shakespear's "Romeo and Juliet" although markedly more barbaric and superstitious. Vlacil is not interested telling a linear story which can make it difficult to follow at times but it is also his use of dialogue or the lack thereof which gives this film an hallucinatory quality. Vlacil's real emphasis is on the poetic image to create his narrative and is what really makes this an astounding work of art and brings to mind the work of other director's like Tarkovsky (Andrei Roublev,1966); Dreyer (Passion of Joan of Arc, 1928); Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, 1954), Bergman (The Seventh Seal,1957) and Eisenstein (Ivan the Terrible,1944). "Marketa Lazarova" also incorporates elements of soviet montage with the use of animals in several sequences as metaphor. The score by Zdenek Liska who is known for his work with Jan Svankmajer is amazing, incorporating medieval church music and making "Marketa Lazarova" an operatic masterpiece.

I am now lead to believe upon viewing this film that this is truly one of the great neglected works of of Czech cinema as it is rarely shown outside of Eastern Europe. All that has been set right now by Second Run releasing it on DVD format (Well done guys, we want more!). The transfer is excellent with high contrast and a great clean soundtrack. There are no extras aside from the informative booklet but that is no cause for complaint.

Do not miss this opportunity to own a copy of this amazing film. A must for all film buffs.