Marketa Lazarová

Mikolás and his brother Adam rob travelers for their tyrannical father Kozlík. During one of their "jobs" they end up with a young German hostage whose father escapes to return news of the kidnapping and robbery to the King. Kozlik prepares for the wrath of the King, and sends Mikolás to pressure his neighbor Lazar to join him in war. Persuasion fails, and in vengeance Mikolás abducts Lazar's daughter Marketa, just as she was about to join a convent. The King, meantime, dispatches an army and the religious Lazar will be called upon to join hands against Kozlik. Stripped-down, surreal, and relentlessly grimy account of the shift from Paganism to Christianity.



Overview
Vladislav Vancura's novel Marketa Lazarova was based on a centuries-old Czechoslovakian legend. The film version concerns itself with a group of pillaging feudal lords. Though they regard themselves as noble knights, these lords are a raping, robbing lot, slaves to the many superstitions that grip their land. Magda Vasaryova plays Marketa Lazarova, whose misadventures begin when she is kidnapped and abused by the "protagonists." Director Frantisek Vlacil spares us nothing in bringing the Vancura novel to the screen, not even a gruesomely convincing public beheading.