Marketa Lazarová

UK DVD label Second Run – which specializes in rare Eastern European classics – have, over the last couple of years, released a handful of films I have long yearned to watch (and which, as a result of this viewing of MARKETA LAZAROVA, I've just ordered online): Aleksander Ford's KNIGHTS OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER (1960; a disc which despite its being trimmed by the BBFC and in an altered aspect ratio, I couldn't sensibly forego), Jerzy Kawalerowicz's MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS (1961; their very first release which I purchased in London last year), Jan Nemec's THE PARTY AND THE GUESTS (1966) and, debuting in a few days' time, Miklos Jancso's THE ROUND-UP (1965).

Unlike these movies, I wasn't consciously aware of MARKETA LAZAROVA when the infectious buzz about its impending release hit the Internet but, as I later found out, the film was actually mentioned, ever so fleetingly, in one of my father's old movie magazines. Again, when the DVD was eventually released, there was a negative vibe about the alleged visual deficiencies of Second Run's disc but, in hindsight, these were quite needlessly exaggerated. Ultimately, an awesome – and, as it turned out, essential – movie experience such as this one deserves to be seen right away and to keep waiting for that perfectly pristine print to rear its unlikely head is utterly pointless. Alas, the Czech New Wave is still a largely undiscovered segment of cinema history for me so I am not in a position to suitably assess whether MARKETA LAZAROVA is indeed the greatest Czech movie ever made (as it had been judged in a 1998 poll among 100 native film critics). Suffice it to say that this ostensibly obscure film has by now figured in a number of published all-time best polls and, consequently, its status is deservedly well-established. Hopefully, as it was in my case, Second Run's DVD will serve as the introduction to many an adventurous film enthusiast in the future…

Since my overall experience of MARKETA LAZAROVA was such a positive one, it seems only right to get my quibbles with the film out of the way first and there are basically two of them: a muddled storyline which, for most of the film's first half, left me rather perplexed as to which of the two warring factions the characters whose exploits I was following on screen belonged and, while things got clearer as time went by, the individuals themselves (with the obvious exception of the titular character) did not exactly garner much sympathy. I suppose that for a movie with a running time of almost three hours these flaws would usually be significantly detrimental to one's enjoyment of the whole: however, the definite impression I was left with while watching was that, despite the eponymous title, the director's intent was not to narrate a conventional life history but actually to create a visual tapestry of the medieval era onto celluloid and, in this regard, to say that he succeeded would be the understatement of the year. In fact, along with Andrei Tarkovsky's ANDREI RUBLEV (shot in 1965 but actually unreleased until 1972), I'd venture to say that MARKETA LAZAROVA is the most convincingly realized cinematic portrait of those turbulent times, distinguishing Frantisek Vlacil's vision as an overwhelmingly expansive and stunningly visual one.

In this context, it is quite appropriate that the titular character (played by a future Presidential candidate, the beautiful Magda Vasaryova) is practically silent for most of the film; she is first seen about to enter into a holy order but is eventually abducted, raped and impregnated by the feral Mikolas (who was actually raised by wolves) whom she comes to love eventually. Another parallel and equally unlikely relationship we are witness to is the one which blossoms between the earthy Alexandria (who is also involved in some brief but startling instances of full-frontal nudity) and her young, aristocratic captive who happens to be a German Bishop; it is worth noting here that Alexandria had already almost cost the life of her brother Adam when his own father had severed his arm in punishment for their incestuous coupling! Interestingly, the film is divided into two parts – respectively entitled "Straba" and "The Lamb Of God" – and punctuated by frequent, verbose, half Dickensian-half picaresque chapter headings, not to mention the presence on the soundtrack of a bemused narrator who, at one point, even takes on the role of God while interacting with a monk! This is not the only instance of whimsical inventiveness present in MARKETA LAZAROVA – perhaps adopted by the director to counter the oppressively bleak ambiance created by the forbidding snowy landscape and dense forest settings which can actually claim to be the film's true main characters. As I said previously, striking images abound throughout: the intermittent, sinister appearance of the pack of wolves is impressively eerie, the distraught monk looking for his lamb and eventually losing her decapitated head down a clifftop, a horse drowning in a puddle on a deserted no man's land, the camera occasionally taking on a feverishly first person viewpoint according to the character at hand, the effective use of unheralded off-kilter compositions (including a totally bizarre arrow-in-the-eye shot!), etc. Having said that, Zdenek Liska's choral, percussive and electronic score is equally imaginative and, as a result, extraordinarily complementary to the uniquely sombre spectacle on constant display.

Some of the most rewarding film experiences I know of annotate the medium itself, oftentimes than not so elliptically it's almost impossible to see at first. I don't mean Fellini's "8 ½" (1963) or "F for Fake" (1974) and their ilk; these are explicitly self-referential films, not that there's anything wrong in that. The films I am referring to aren't really self-referentially about film on narrative level, rather about something else entirely; they become film allegories by extension, as if in the periphery, accidentally.

"Marketa Lazarová" (1967), so audaciously otherworldly, is a film like that. I've seen it twice now, and slowly it's starting to reveal its riches. The first time around my expectations misled me to approach it as something closer to Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev" (1966), and while there are similarities, the film is so radical it's not that fitting a comparison in my mind.

The backdrop for the film is a profound historical and cultural paradigm shift where Christianity and paganism battle it out. Two opposites, the film can be seen as a poetic exploration of this struggle, and thus as a social document. While interesting, something else speaks to me more. For me the two allegorical forces at play are those of image and sound, and their use in film world, in filmic language. They often go their own ways, images showing us something and the narration swerving to somewhere else altogether, and the complex array of characters and their unorthodox introduction and presentation in the film underline the effect of confusion very powerfully. The overdubbed, echoing dialogue, often out of sync with the image, distracted me on first viewing, but it's unmistakably fitting in the grand scheme of things. Some images are so powerful I can't get them out of my mind (not that I'd want to, mind you!)

And the music! It's the highest compliment I can think of when I say for a film so visually rich that you should not only see it but listen to it. Liska's contribution to the film in some ways contributes to the modest thesis I've been trying to form in so short a space, that is the wonderful interplay of sound and image. Kieslowski's "Trois couleurs: Bleu" (1993) might compare if I wanted to search for something as equally stunning as this.

And I can't write about the film without mentioning the most wonderful sound I've come across in film. It's the convent bell, and one can hear it towards the very beginning, during the revelation and just before the intertitles, I think, and I think it's repeated at least once later on.

All in all, what an experience. We're lucky to have two Blu-rays of the film, the first a Czech Region B, the second a Criterion Region A release. The first one does have English subtitles.

I bought the Second Run DVD, after reading about how this epic was considered the best Czech film, ever.

To be honest, not many other contenders spring to mind. And, who voted? As it was on special offer and I am a sucker indeed for that Russian style of gritty monochrome composition and beauty, how could I resist?

I'm on its second play and I'm no nearer following the story. There is undoubtedly one. Am I too overawed by imagery that I could only dream of? (even if I were able to!) Is it the savagery and feel of a certain reality?

I don't know. I can sense, however, an art film made with passion and unbounded imagination. Of folklore, both in a historical sense and a cultural one and of religious rebellion. Like Kurosawa at his best, an immediacy and connection. Yet, it is also dreamlike and distant, with an air of mysticism that I found increasingly confusing. The length of film means that by halfway through I've no idea what is going on, but am still enjoying what I see.

Unfortunately, I have docked a mark for the forced, electronically induced echo on the dialogue that probably is supposed to denote that other worldly strangeness. It seems to seep in and hang about, its constant use here cheapens the effect to being a bit of a pain. Whereas Kurosawa used that SFX so effectively on, say Roshomon, by using just once or twice.

I could see elements of the Brazilian 'Black God, White Devil' and like others have commented, Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai' and Tarkov's 'Andrei Rublev'. Maybe some of the black magic in Bergman's late medieval classics, such as 'The Virgin Spring' and 'The Seventh Seal'. But more psychotic, more manic and disturbing than all these put together. Like madness itself, there is a real beauty deeply ingrained amongst the mayhem.

My conclusion would have to be that if you get the chance, go for it. Take it with a large pinch of salt and sprinkle sparingly. None of it is truly horrific or unpalatable to most adults and don't worry if you don't "get it". Be slightly proud and immodest that you've found a tarnished gem that hardly anyone else will have seen or are ever likely to.

Man was a beast before the Middle Ages, but now it was one racked with guilt. Violence was the constant and would continue to be the shaper of worlds but, with the advent of this new religion preaching mercy and penitence, it was probably the first time that this violence was experienced within unprecedented, new frameworks. What had been passed through the blood for centuries in the Teutonic woods as the only means of arranging the world in some order, this instinctive violence, was now felt to be abominable.

In this sense, the religious angst of the medieval man comes from trying to conciliate that ancestral world where carving a blood eagle on the back of a fallen chieftain pleased the gods, with the new ideas of perceiving it, where sins had to be atoned for.

Here we get the tumultuous chronicle of this, the writing of the middle part of history.

We get baroque, medieval art, steeped in religious terror and ancestral guilt. Chances are there's a slew of medieval films out there, but probably not one that is as pungent, with a single exception. We encounter this cruel, pitiless hell on earth where life is meaningless and crazed gods roaming it exact terrible, ironic tolls on the human soul, ten years later in Diabel, by the hand of a certified madman this time.

Spiritually I couldn't be farther apart from this godless vision of tortured human beings, essentially Christian. But as an experience to dwell upon and inhabit, the film offers no quarter. It's a better Valhalla Rising, thirty years before.

What new frameworks here though, how best to experience the torture of the medieval man? The director finds the answer in the Czech New Wave.

The intertitle that opens this delineates what follows as a saga, an epic story of murder and intrigue. The masterstroke here lies in how this saga is told, in fragmenting it from a linear notion where time is a succession (which is the artifice of history) and presenting us with those fragments as a vivid experience of a life bled for and anguished. Which is to say, Marketa Lazarova is not the history of what transpired but the memory of it, which is then arranged into a story.

The camera then sees inside this story deeper than any bard did. And what it sees is that these passions and sufferings are not linear, therefore building up to something or anticipated to come to an end that would justify the pain, but an exponential cycle turning indifferently and without pattern.

Yet here is where the film falters. Having broken this up, the film shies away from the opportunity to look directly at what hides behind it, if anything, and insists we read this as a rhapsody where it's not impossible to consider the degenerate as cruel, flawed heroes who defied the king's rule. Bombastic music swells up in crescendos now and then to remind us that all this is horrible, but fundamentally tragic.

This may be a quibble however. It's a harrowing experience watching these men, small and insignificant at the face of violence, struggle with a pain and madness immemorial, that predates their existence. Omens of skaldic doom abound here, black crows in the bony branches of trees. Whatever they signify or not, whether the gods cackle at all this or are indifferently absent, these sights curdle the blood.

The film's reputation very well precedes it; in the first moment that I learned of 'Marketa Lazarová,' I also learned it's regarded as perhaps the best Czech movie ever made. I can appreciate why - I'm not familiar with the novel the movie is adapted from, but the story is exquisite. The narrative is as bleak as it is expertly crafted, and deeply engrossing. There's strong attention to detail in all things - every shot, every article of the costume design, every sight of set design, and eye-catching filming locations. The vivid imagery of a historical drama becomes ever more stark captured in black and white, including the countenances of the actors. The assembled cast is outstanding - all those most prominent before the camera, of course (Magda Vásáryová above all, embodying the all-important title role with all due gravity) but even those in supporting roles, realizing every vivid emotion and tribulation. Factor in many extras as well, and the landscape of medieval Europe seems dazzlingly real and tangible.

However - for as superb as the narrative is, and for as excellent as the picture is as a whole, I cannot say it's perfect. I have a rather difficult time engaging with the film at points, especially in the first half. The presentation of the story is disjointed: some story beats, or facets of each plot point that would round them out, are not expressed clearly, or at all. There is a substantial amount of narrative that does not play out before the camera, or dialogue that is spoken by figures who are not on-screen, and the audience is left to pick up the pieces and discern what they may. Fine as the tale is, it's extremely difficult to truly parse it without an outside synopsis to provide the context and clarification that the feature does not. For all the characters that are introduced, and given plenty of attention at varying points, the fates of some are left vague. The end result is that 'Marketa Lazarová' comes off not just as historical fiction, but an art film ruthlessly indifferent to conventional narrative flow.

To be clear, I think this is a great, grand film. The story it tells is magnificent in and of itself, and complex, even as it's terribly grim. All technical aspects are fantastic, including the direction; the cast is swell; the writing, broadly, is marvelous. Some sequences are truly exceptional - outright phenomenal - particularly nearer the end. But there are also many ponderous gaps in the plot progression, and otherwise instances of inelegant telling, that gravely stymie the absolute mastery of cinema that the feature could and should have represented save for those faults. That 'Marketa Lazarová' nonetheless succeeds in being so splendid a work despite its flaws is a testament to the skills of all involved, but the deficiencies are unfortunate all the same.

The content is oppressively dreary, and the execution as a whole has no few problems. Still, for all that: the immense quality, from start to finish, manages to well outweigh the issues of its rendering. I think this is a superlative example of what cinema can achieve that deserves far greater renown outside the Czech Republic; would only that the blemishes could have been cleared up. For many reasons this won't be a film that everyone can enjoy, but if one can look past the sometimes laborious effort that the viewing experience represents, I dare say this is essential. Though regrettably imperfect, 'Marketa Lazarová' is a captivating, striking exemplar of film that earns my most hearty recommendation, and it's very much worth watching by whatever means one is able.