František Vláčil

Marketa Lazarová is a medieval epic of robber clans, a kidnapping, faith and snow, shot in black and white, and it is the film Vláčil is remembered for. His films go back to the Middle Ages, or to the end of the war, and set private loyalty against religion and history. In The Valley of the Bees, a boy is promised to a strict knightly order by the father who nearly killed him. In Adelheid, a Czech soldier running a German family's manor falls in love with its daughter.

Signature

• Medieval Bohemia filmed as harsh and physical.
• Christian faith against pagan instinct.
• Poetic black-and-white imagery with little dialogue.
• The Czech-German reckoning after 1945 (Adelheid).