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Marketa Lazarová
Marketa Lazarová
8.8
/10
1,433 Ratings

MARKETA LAZAROVÁ

Directed by František Vláčil
Czechoslovakia, 1967
Drama, History

Synopsis

Set in the Middle Ages during the shift from Paganism to Christianity, this film based on a novel by Vladislav Vančura follows the rivalry between two corrupt clans of violent, pillaging feudal lords. Marketa Lazarová’s misfortune begins when she is kidnapped and abused by three clan members.

Synopsis

Set in the Middle Ages during the shift from Paganism to Christianity, this film based on a novel by Vladislav Vančura follows the rivalry between two corrupt clans of violent, pillaging feudal lords. Marketa Lazarová’s misfortune begins when she is kidnapped and abused by three clan members.

Our take

František Vláčil’s ambitious Middle Ages saga is an otherwordly, experimental epic and pure existential spectacle: a film modernist in style and conversely historical in setting. Disorientatingly dense, and both brutal and beguiling, Marketa Lazarova is a renowned masterpiece of Czech cinema.