Jakubisko Film s.r.o

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awards

- Best photography, Wine Country Film Fest 2001, Glen Ellen, California, USA
- Winner of World Panorama - Audience Competition, Camerimage 2001, Lodz, Poland
- Grand prize for best foreign film, Rhode Island Intl. Film Festival, 2002
3 ČFTA “Český lev” (Czech Lion) awards
- Best photography
- Best music
- Best sound

about

A Film Story playing from spring to winter and covering 80 years of human life.

Seven dramatic human life stories that may play anywhere and in any century. They tell the everlasting story of passion, love, desire, obsession and selfishness. The whole story, the Ballads were written by a Czech poet K. J. Erben a century ago and yet they are still here and alive. Therefore the authors of the movie decided to chose seven of the ballads and make them a film poetry of a very new style. It is a composition of photography, music and a fascinating landscape and architecture. The first ballad is full of emotions and opens the whole world of different feelings and emotions of the human being as well as fairy tale creatures. It carries the name Bouquet and tells a story of little orphans crying for their mother . The mother hears their cries and prayers and comes back to them in the form of a little flower. The second one is a fascinating slightly horror story about a waterman who falls in love with a country girl. Most of the scenes are shot really in the water and make this very authentic. It is again an eternal story about love, passion, different aspects of motherhood and discrimination .

The third one is narrating about a desperate, tired mother and a greedy old noon witch. The mother is frustrated and her child is noisy and bothering her in every respect, therefore she calls the witch to give the boy a lesson - however she regrets her desperate deed immediately, its consequences are irretrievable. The fourth one is a romantic horror played between our world and the world of the dead. The fifth one called The Daughter’s Curse is in fact an unfortunate misunderstanding between two different generations. It deals again of the often complicated mother-daughter relationship, especially when the daughter is handicapped and the mother wants “the best” for the poor child. In the end the daughter cannot cope with the freedom and curses her mother. The one but last poem is a colourful story about the confusing similarity of faces when characters are totally different. It is a great opportunity for one actress who plays both the good and the wicked girl. However the bad ones get punished and the good ones are rewarded as in any good fairy tale. The photography uses the beautiful colours of the fall and the beauty of the landscape.

The last one is closing the circle of a human life in the person of an old woman who accepts her death as a natural ending of her life. She feels in peace with God and her fellow people and knows that she didn’t live in vain. The persons of individual stories keep meeting in between their ballads as on a merry-go round. It is a great poetry composed of pictures, music and words that accompanies us home and makes us ponder over the sense of life and death, love and hate, tolerance and discrimination, tenderness and wild passion for a long time.

1 hour 18 min / color
Premiere screening: December 7th 2000
Produkce: Jakubisko Film s.r.o. / Czech Television

ocenci

Zahraniční ocenění:
- Nejlepší kamera, Wine Country Film Fest 2001, Glen Ellen, California, USA
- Vítěz World Panorama - Audience Competition, Camerimage 2001, Lodž, Polsko
- Velká cena za nejlepší zahraniční film, Mezinárodní filmový festival Rhode Island, 2002

Domácí ocenění:
3 ocenění ČFTA “Český lev”
- Nejlepší kamera
- Nejlepší hudba - Nejlepší zvuk - Ocenění ČFTA “Nejlepší filmový plakát roku 2000” pro Juraje Jakubiska

synopsis

Sbírka baladických příběhů slavného českého básníka 19. století K. J. Erbena je i po více než sto letech stále živá. Z toho důvodu se také tvůrci filmu rozhodli vybrat sedm z balad a dát jim filmovou podobu za využití nejen technických novinek. Ve výsledku jde o poetickou kompozici obrazu, hudby, fascinující krajiny a architektury. Úvodní báseň “Kytice” je emotivním vstupem do celého vyprávění. Pod vodou natáčený “Vodník” je filmovou epopejí o spojení a nepochopení dvou rozdílných světů: pozemského a vodního. Příběh “Svatební košile” pojímáme filmovou řečí jako romantický horor, ve kterém se střetává pozemský život se záhrobním. “Dceřinu kletbu” vidíme jako zoufalé nedorozumění dvou generací. “Polednice” je vyprávěním o zoufalé, unavené matce a nenasytné staré polednici. “Zlatý kolovrat” je vystavěný na obludnosti duše, kde tvář zůstává stejná a povaha je jiná. Poslední balada “Štědrý den” uzavírá kruh lidských vášní a tragédií postavou staré ženy, která přijímá svůj osud s pokorou a smířením.

Toto baladické dílo K. J. Erbena, které obdivují všechny generace a které je známé i za hranicemi, natočil režisér F.A. Brabec, zatímco Juraj Jakubisko se na projektu “Kytice” podílel jako art producent.