"Actor: Vera Galatikova"

• The Valley of the Bees | Blu Ray | (30/09/2024) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Set in 13th-century Europe, Frantisek Vlacil's visionary medieval epic chronicles the tale of a young boy forced to join the Order of the Teutonic Knights. Years later he abandons the Crusaders, only to be pursued by a fanatical comrade and pay a terrible price for his rejection of the Holy Order. With dazzling monochrome cinematography and vivid recreation of the period, 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 engrossing a film as his more famous work, Marketa Lazarová.

• Larks on a String (Skrivánci na niti) | DVD | (14/03/2011) from £11.95   |  Saving you £2.80 (27.48%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Shot in 1969 but banned by the Czech government until the fall of the Communist regime in 1990 Menzel's wry comic drama is a hymn to humanity and nonconformity. The film's principal characters are residents of a state-run junkyard / labour camp for those whose actions have been deemed 'counter-revolutionary'. On one side of the yard live the men most sent here for 're-education'. On the other side are a group of women interned for the crime of attempted defection. Separately the two groups lazily toil sorting out piles of scrap metal (one huge pile is nothing less than a veritable mountain of crucifixes and religious icons); together they flirt philosophize and occasionally sneak off behind the hillocks of slag to make love. Larks On A String is at once a stinging indictment of the repressive politics of Czechoslovakia's past and an endearing comedy and affecting love story.

• Valley of the Bees | DVD | (22/03/2010) from £14.49   |  Saving you £-1.50 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Ondrej a young boy who loves bees and bats is introduced to his new mother a woman much younger than his father...