MARKETA LAZAROVA (CRITERION)

In its home country, František Vlácil's Marketa Lazarová has been hailed as the greatest Czech film ever made; for many U.S. viewers, it will be a revelation. Based on a novel by Vladislav Vancura, this stirring and poetic depiction of a feud between two rival medieval clans is a fierce, epic, and meticulously designed evocation of the clashes between Christianity and paganism, humankind and nature, love and violence. Vlácil's approach was to re-create the textures and mentalities of a long-ago way of life, rather than to make a conventional historical drama, and the result is dazzling. With its inventive widescreen cinematography, editing, and sound design, Marketa Lazarová is an experimental action film.

Special Features:

• New high-definition digital film restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• New interviews with actors Magda Vášáryová, Ivan Palúch, and Vlastimil Harapes and costume designer Theodor Pištek
• New interviews with film historian Peter Hames and journalist and critic Antonín Liehm
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring new essays by film scholar Tom Gunning and author and translator Alex Zucker and a 1969 interview with Vlácil by Liehm
• More!