Invention for Destruction (Karel Zeman, 1958)

Cast: Lubor Tokos, Arnost Navrátil, Miroslav Holub, Frantisek Siégr, Václav Kyzlink, Jana Zatloukalová. Screenplay: Frantisek Hrubín, Milan Vácha, Karel Zeman, based on a novel by Jules Verne. Cinematography: Antonín Horák, Bohuslav Pikhart, Jirí Tarantik. Production design: Karel Zeman. Costume design: Karel Postrehovsky. Film editing: Zdenek Stehlík. Music: Zdenek Liska.

Where has this wonderful film been all my life? Invention for Destruction (aka The Deadly Invention and The Fabulous World of Jules Verne) is catnip to a lover of Victorian book illustration like me, with its miraculous transformation of old line engravings into sets and costumes as well as its astonishing blend of animation with live action. It makes other attempts to bring the steampunk aesthetic and the adventures in the books of Jules Verne, including such well-known movies as the Oscar-winning Around the World in 80 Days (Michael Anderson, 1958) and the Disney version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Richard Fleischer, 1954), look phony -- they look like they were made in the 1950s, whereas the world of Karel Zeman's film looks authentically late 19th-century. This is the real thing: Verne, and just as importantly, his illustrator Léon Benett, brought to life with both respect and whimsy. The latter quality, which gives us some fantastic machinery and even some roller-skating camels, is just as important as the first. Zeman takes Verne more seriously than his great predecessor Georges Méliès did in his pioneering evocations of the Vernesque future, but not as seriously as Hollywood did, preferring occasional tongue-in-cheek renditions of the author's visions. Still, Invention for Destruction, based loosely on Verne's 1896 novel Facing the Flag, has serious undertones in its treatment of the titular invention, a clear analogue of Einstein's investigation into the potential of atomic energy and the terrifying weapons that evolved from it. I'm just astonished that it has taken almost a lifetime of movie-watching for me to get around to discovering this amazing film. 

The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (Karel Zeman, 1962)

The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (Karel Zeman, 1962)

Not as reined-in as his wonderful 1958 tribute to Jules Verne, Invention for Destruction, Karel Zeman's The Fabulous Baron Munchausen often has an anything-goes quality to its fantasy, which makes it a little too easy to detach yourself from its ongoing barrage of astonishing images. A revival of the film in the 1980s directly influenced Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), which suffers from a similar lack of groundedness.

Cast: Milos Kopecký, Rudolf Jelinek, Jana Brejchová, Karel Höger, Eduard Kohout, Jan Werich, Bohus Záhorský, Rudlof Hrusínský. Screenplay: Jirí Brdecka, Josef Kainar, Karel Zeman, based on a book by Gottfried August Bürger and stories by Rudolph Erich Raspe. Cinematography: Jirí Tarantik. Production design: Karel Zeman. Film editing: Vera Kutilova. Music: Zdenek Liska.

Marketa Lazarová (Frantisek Vlácil, 1967)

Magda Vásáryová in Marketa Lasarová 

Kozlik: Josef Kemr
Marketa Lazarová: Magda Vásáryová
Mikolás: Frantisek Velecký
Adam: Ivan Palúch
Alexandra: Pavla Polásková
Lazar: Michal Kozuch
Old Count Kristián: Harry Studt
Young Count Kristián: Vlastimil Harapes
Captain "Beer": Zdenek Kryzánek
Bernard: Vladimir Mensik
Sovicka: Zdenek Rehor

Director: Frantisek Vlácil
Screenplay: Frantisek Pavlícek, Frantisek Vlácil
Based on a novel by Vladislav Vancura
Cinematography: Bedrich Batka
Art direction: Oldrich Okác
Film editing: Miroslav Hájek
Music: Zdenek Liska

I am grateful to Tom Gunning's Criterion Collection essay on Marketa Lazarová not only for the many insights into the film, including a concise summary of the story it tells, but also for citing another film scholar's comparison of it to Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev (1966). My viewing of Frantisek Vlácil's film was very much like my first viewing of Tarkovsky's: It left me with a feeling that I had seen something extraordinary that I didn't quite understand. I've seen Andre Rublev again, and while I can't say I understand it, I recognize it as the extraordinary cinema masterpiece that it is. It's entirely possible that another viewing of Marketa Lazarová might leave me with a similar impression. Both films are immersive experiences, throwing the viewers into an era strange to them and giving them only a few guideposts to help them sort out even such matters as who's doing what to whom and why. Marketa Lazarová has been voted the greatest Czech film by Czech critics and filmmakers, and I have no doubt that it deserves the accolade. But it will take me another viewing simply to get my bearings on it. It's beautifully filmed, and it does some daring things with sound -- the voices were dubbed later, sometimes with actors other than the ones we see on screen. Every film in a language foreign to me is a cultural challenge, though one I welcome, so much kudos to TCM for programming Marketa Lazarová.