Criterion Collection: Marketa Lazarova | Blu-ray Review

You’ll be hard pressed to make a more exciting discovery than Criterion’s digital transfer of Frantisek Vlacil’s 1967 Czech classic, Marketa Lazarova. Voted the best Czech film of all time by a 1998 panel of Czech critics, the film had been unavailable for Western consumption (beyond rare art house screenings) until late 2007 when UK studio Second Run released a Region 2 copy. After a 2011 restoration from Universal Production Partners, the US now has access to a gloriously restored digital transfer, a phenomenal presentation of what stands as one of the world’s cinematic wonders, a densely structured unique experience of cinema as visual poetry.

While the narrative outline seems succinctly evident, especially considering Vlacil’s attempts to retain the essence of the famed novel upon which it’s based by announcing quick summaries via title cards as before a set amount of chapters, the glorious immersion of sight and sound relates its content to us unlike any traditional sort of narrative structure. Various characters, motifs, and sometimes unexplained instances begs for more than one uninterrupted viewing to grasp its intent, leaving one with an unprecedented breathless excitement. Vlacil’s technique has been often compared or supposed to have been influenced by Bresson and Welles. For comparison’s sake, however, Vlacil’s unhurried yet somehow assaulting frames feel more related to something like Alexei German’s 1998 film Krustalyov, My Car!

Set in the 13th century, a feud is taking placed between two rival medieval clans, each placed on the recent divide of Christianity and Paganism. Marketa (Magda Vasaryova) is actually the daughter of Lazar (Michal Kozuch), who is rather low on the social scale, and, more or less, is on the side of a Christian community ruled by a Count whose henchman is Captain Beer (Zdenek Kryzanek). A vicious feud rages between the Captain and the leader of the pagan clan, Old Kozlik (Josef Kemr) because at the beginning of the film, two of Kozlik’s sons, One-Armed Adam (Ivan Paluch) and Mikolas (Frantisek Velecky) rob a band of traveling Saxon noblemen and kidnap Kristian (Vlastimil Harapes), the son of the Count. Lazar robs the bodies of the dead Saxons, which leads Mikolas to mistakenly count on Lazar as a possible ally, and spurns considerable drama, resulting in the eventual kidnapping of Marketa. After being violated by Mikolas, Marketa begins to fall in love with him.

While it may be Marketa’s wish to join a cloister of nuns, her Pagan counterpart is Kozlik’s daughter Alexandra (Pavla Polaskova), who nakedly worships a large tree under which she has created a shrine, seems to have one of those passionately incestuous relationships with her one-armed brother Adam (guess why he has one arm), which is complicated by her attraction to the captive Kristian. As Kozlik and the Captain lose plenty of their men in the attempt to retrieve the Count’s abducted son, Marketa is eventually released only to find she is pregnant by Mikolas, only to be rejected by her father upon her return, who believes she left of her own accord.

The film is divided into two parts, the first titled Straba, referring to a possible ancestor of Kozlik’s clan, a mythical, literal werewolf. The long suffering matriarch of the Pagans relates oral folklore, and concludes that “weeping is the gift of relief,” which isn’t a relief any of them are privileged to. The second part, titled Lamb of God finds God addressing Bernard, a fool of slow wits who God accuses of sodomizing an actual Lamb.

Disc Review:

From its opening moments, where an omniscient narrator (who later doubles as God and directly addressing one of the characters) playfully alludes to the tale about to transpire as “foolish deeds scattered at random,” Vlacil drops us directly into breathtaking long shots of life forms speckled in the omnipotent landscape. From here on out, Marketa Lavarova oscillates between a waking dream and nightmare, long shoots zooming through hungry wolves and imperious falcons, close-ups on cold hearted craggy faces that rival Sergio Leone’s sweaty westerns, and a roving camera that floats in the air and glides through the grass. Criterion’s 4K digital film transfer is a sight to behold, and this glorious preservation of this grand cinematic achievement is thankfully available to be experienced as it rightfully should be.

In the Web of Time
A 1989 documentary with Frantisek Vlacil, directed by Frantisek Uldrich, in which we get to hear Vlacil speak about his filmmaking process. Rather than write down his visual schemes, he would simply draw them, explaining that he began as a visual artist rather than attending an actual film school (though he worked in the Czech Army Film School), and explains why he operated outside of the Czech new wave of the 1960s. “Creativity is man’s privilege,” he concludes.

2013 Interviews:
New interviews with three of the actors from the film, Magda Vasaryova, Ivan Paluch, and Vlastimil Harapes, as well as costume designer Theodor Pistek are included, all relating memories of their experiences filming with Vlacil.

Also included are 2013 interviews with film historian Peter Hames and Vlacil’s friend, journalist and film critic, Antonin Liehm.

The original trailer and a gallery of Vlacil’s original storyboard are also available as extra features.

Final Review:

A potently overwhelming examination of the sacred and profane, Christianity vs. Paganism, Vlacil succeeds in transporting us to his imaginative portrait of life in the 13th century. Years of research, including having his main cast members live as their characters for a lengthy amount of time, is evidently on display, and Marketa Lazarova bares the brutal beauty of life during medieval times. Its eerie, haunting music, gorgeous cinematography from Bedrich Batka and Miroslav Hajek’s editing make for one of the most magical cinematic assaults on the senses. It’ll razzle dazzle you.