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Shades of Fern

50 %|Jan 1, 1986|Drama

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.

Featured Crew

František Vláčil
Director
Theodor Pištěk
Costume Design
Jiří F. Svoboda
Original Music Composer
František Uldrich
Director of Photography
Miroslav Hájek
Editor
Jiří Blažek
Creative Producer
Josef Večerek
Set Decoration
František Vláčil
Screenplay