Movielogr
Shades of Fern (1986)
Directed by František Vláčil
Overview
Based on the only extensive prose work by the surrealist painter Josef Capek, Shades of Fern most resembles the philosophical fairy tales and fables of Josef’s older brother, the legendary Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek. Two young poachers, more boys than men, kill a gamekeeper when they are caught illegally hunting. Panicked, they retreat into a forest that grows steadily more forbidding and deadly as their fear for the future—and guilt over their action—mounts. Loosely based on hundreds of oral folk tales and legends that haunt the woods of Czechoslovakia, Vlácil’s contemporary updating artistically underscores the relationship between man and nature, crime and punishment, isolation and society, and guilt and memory.
Length 90 minutes
Actors
Marek Probosz | Zbigniew Suszyński | Miroslav Macháček | František Peterka | Vladimír Hlavatý | Milada Ježková | Josef Patočka | Oldřich Velen | Jaroslav Tomsa | Marta Vančurová | Emma Cerná | Jana Švandová | Jiří Schmitzer | Zdenka Sajfertová | Petr Skarke | Vítězslav Jandák | Arnošt Böhm | Josef Pechanec | Frantisek Stupka | Jaroslav Špáňa | Karel Vávrovec | Jaroslav Vlk | Soňa Novotná | Karel Smrž | Dobroslav Čech | Bohumil Vávra | Zdeněk Podhůrský | Jitka Asterová | Martina Bezoušková | Vlastimil Drbal | Karel Belohradský | Slávka Hamouzová | Vlastimila Vlková | Josef Blahož | Josef Čermák | Jan Forejt | Josef Fürst | Josef Kasl | Zdeněk Kesler | Jan Kopecký | Antonín Korb | Jaroslav Materna | Jiří Miloš | Vojtěch Říha | Jaroslav Šprunk | František Trnka | František Zikán | Ladislav Vacek