Marketa Lazarová

Set in 13th-century Czechoslovakia, this 1967 epic from director František Vláčil is based on Vladislav Vančura's same-titled 1931 novel, a revered masterpiece of Czech literature. In a 1998 poll, Czechoslovakian critics and filmmakers voted it the greatest film ever made in their country, but it is largely unknown in the United States, making this Criterion release most welcome. Marketa Lazarová unfolds with overlapping stories and characters in an untamed world. The conflict between Kozlik (Josef Kemr), the brutish pagan patriarch of a bandit clan, and Lazar (Michal Kozuch), a Christian lord, begins as a campaign of ambushes and tortures before escalating into open warfare, with Lazar's daughter, Marketa (Magda Vásáryová), caught in the middle. All of this plays out against perpetually gray skies and an endless, rugged landscape that, by the end, is littered with the dead. For all of Vláčil's devotion to medieval texture, Marketa Lazarová is not a work of historical realism but rather an exaggerated interpretation that is crafted out of poetic storytelling and primal imagery of wood, stone, and earth. Bowing on DVD and Blu-ray in a stunning new restoration, extras include new interviews with cast, crew members, and film historians, as well as an archival interview with Vláčil, and a booklet. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)