Marketa Lazarová
František Vláčil · 1967
Marketa Lazarová (1967), directed by František Vláčil, is a Czechoslovak arthouse drama adapted from Vladislav Vančura’s novel. Set in early 13th-century Bohemia, it follows the collision of two warring clans amid the violent rise of Christian authority. Shot in stark black-and-white by Beda Batka over 548 days in freezing conditions, its 162-minute runtime sustains an immersive, tactile world built on repetition, silence, and fractured chronology — not exposition. Zdeněk Liška’s dissonant score and Theodor Pištěk’s austere costumes reinforce its refusal of narrative ease. Though critically revered — voted the greatest Czech film in 1998 — it demands patience and rewards it with unparalleled sensory gravity.