Shades of Fern (1986)

Shades of Fern (1986)

1986-01-01 Czechoslovakia 90 Min. PG-13
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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.

Cast

Marek Probosz is Ruda Aksamit
Ruda Aksamit
Zbigniew Suszyński is Vašek Kala
Miroslav Macháček is Keeper / Vagabond / Beggar
Keeper / Vagabond / Beggar
František Peterka is Father Aksamit
Father Aksamit
Milada Ježková is Čepelková
Čepelková
Oldřich Velen is Police Officer
Police Officer
Jaroslav Tomsa is Policeman
Emma Černá is Keeper's Wife
Keeper's Wife