Vlácil narra un episodio del Reino Checo medieval, sobre la rivalidad entre dos clanes familiares de hidalgos pobres, basada en la novela de igual nombre del escritor checo del siglo veinte, Vladislav Vancura.

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.