Inhalte(1)

Paying tribute to sober heroism, this drama is formally the most concise of Vláčil’s three films set in the troubled period just after the Second World War. The story unfolds in a remote part of the Beskydy mountains, where a shepherd and his young family are held hostage by five armed Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries, who force their way into their home, seeking temporary shelter. In the spirit of the classical drama, the director brings into play the unities of action, time and place, creating a masterful sense of increasing tension through his characteristic methods: dynamic lensing, unusual and expressive camerawork, knife-edge scenes half shrouded in darkness, muted delivery from the cast, the use of powerful musical motifs and also prolonged periods of silence. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)

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Kritiken (2)

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D.Moore 

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Deutsch Ein nächster ausgezeichneter Film von Vláčil mit einer perfekten dichten Stimmung, welcher dem ein paar Jahre älteren Film Adelheid ähnelt, aber nicht gleichkommt. Er hat ausgezeichnete Schauspieler*innen (Juraj Kukura habe ich nie besonders gemocht, daran habe ich jetzt aber überhaupt nicht gedacht; Gustáv Valach war noch besser) und Liškas schöne Musik… Ein großartiger Film. Im Vergleich zur bereits erwähnten Adelheid ist er aber ein bisschen schwächer und vorhersagbarer, was schade ist. ()

Lima 

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Englisch After a forced hiatus of several years, when the consolidating normalisation regime had him in their sight, this is but a mere glimmer of the genius of Vláčil, whose excellent craft and imagery exploded in the 1960s and whose artistic heyday (when he was planning many other ambitious historical projects until the 1970s) was halted by the invasion of Russian troops and the subsequent shameful five-year era of "cinema of oblivion". In other words, the Communists squeezed Vláčil like a lemon, and although his last creative phase is not to be dismissed, the proverbial chains that had bound his hands for the previous ten years are very noticeable. Such a shame. ()