Blu-Ray BD50 / 1080p / 24fps / Region ABC
RRP: £19.99
Release Date: 30 September 2024
SRBD 079
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Set in a vividly recreated 13th-century Europe, František Vláčil’s visionary medieval epic chronicles the tale of a young boy forced to join the Order of the Teutonic Knights. Years later he abandons them, only to be pursued by a fanatical comrade and made to pay a terrible price for his rejection of the Holy Order.
Visually stunning, with dazzling monochrome cinematography and intense period detail, The Valley of the Bees is a raw and haunting moral fable about the conflict between human nature and dogmatism – and just as powerful and compelling a film as his more famous work, Marketa Lazarová.
Second Run present The Valley of the Bees from a new HD transfer from original materials held by the Czech National Film Archive.
Our region-free Blu-ray also includes
an new Projection Booth commentary, two of František Vláčil's acclaimed short documentary films, plus a booklet with writing on the film by Czech cinema expert Peter Hames.
• The Valley of the Bees (Údolí včel, 1967) presented from a
new HD transfer from original materials held by the Czech National Film Archive.
• An all-new Projection Booth commentary with Mike White
and Robert Bellissimo.
• New HD presentations of two of František Vláčil's acclaimed short documentary films, photographed by František Uldrich, with music by Zdeněk Liška:
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The City in White (Město v bílém, 1972)
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Karlovy Vary Promenades (Karlovarské promenády, 1972)
• 24-page booklet with writing by film historian, author and Czech cinema expert Peter Hames.
• New and improved English subtitle translation.
• Region Free (A/B/C) Blu-ray.
Directed by František Vláčil
Screenplay - Vladimír Körner and František Vláčil
Cinematography - František Uldrich
Art Direction - Jindřich Goetz
Costume Design - Theodor Pištěk
Music - Zdeněk Liška
Editing - Miroslav Hájek
Sound - František Fabián
Main Cast
Petr Čepek - Ondřej of Vlkov
Jan Kačer - Armin von Heide
Věra Galatíková - Lenora
Michal Ko uch - Father Blasius
Zdeněk Kryzánek - Ondřej’s father
Josef Somr - Rotgier
Jana Hlaváčková - Blind girl
Jana Hájková - Lenora (as a girl)
Zdeněk Sedláček - Ondřej (as a boy)
Vláčil's The Devil's Trap and other gems of Czech and international cinema are also available on Second Run
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1976 Karlovy Vary Film Festival / Winner: Grand Prix Award
“Perhaps there are only two philosophically unique cinematic
texts - Bergman's The Virgin Spring and The Valley of the Bees” František Vláčil
“Vláčil was, with just a handful of films to prove it, the Czech New Wave's formalist, post-expressionist wrecking ball, their Welles, their Parajanov” Village Voice
“A taut, monumental tale of repressed passion and violent fanaticism in the 13th century, which reveals Vláčil to have a compositional talent that stands comparison with Dreyer or Kubrick. [...] the craft is unimpeachable”
Graham Williamson, Letterboxd
“Make no mistake: at a level of craft, and passion, The Valley of the Bees is no less beautiful than Marketa Lazarová”
Glenn Kenny, MUBI Notebook
“The Valley of the Bees is an incredibly beautiful, immensely powerful and complex film. Philosophical and haunting, it grows evermore richer with subsequent viewings. To describe František Vláčil as a visionary is neither a stretch nor a cliché. Clearly a director of great skill, this film is both a great introduction to and a showcase for those talents”
L K Weston, CineOutsider
“[Vláčil's films have] a painter’s eye for telling and/or dissonant detail, an intensely realised sense of period and place, a preference for music over dialogue and a strong affinity with landscapes and their natural flora and fauna [...] the wild sprawl of Marketa Lazarová and the formal rigour of The Valley of the Bees, rank alongside Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and The Virgin Spring, Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev and Welles’s Chimes at Midnight as the most convincing evocations of the medieval era ever committed to film” Michael Brooke, Sight and Sound