9/10
A world of ice. Barren, desolate, white landscapes, with the occasional breaks for mud, reeds, trees, or, unless frozen over, water. These are the images of this world. Empty silence, broken only by the wind and the wolf's howl, perhaps the braying of a horse or the bleating of a sheep. In the distance, there is the sound of voices - sometimes muted, sometimes echoing, sometimes seeming to fill the whole world. These are the sounds of this world. It is populated by those wolves, by horses, as well as by deer, godlike in the midst of this punishing world, frozen in an instant of time, of memory, glimpsed by a human. Humans do, in fact, inhabit this world, despite its desolate, harsh nature, despite the wolves' savage animalism and the deer's majestic beauty, or perhaps because of them. What better place is there for people so empty, so cold, so punishing? Their violence makes way only for greater violence, their greed for greater greed, their savagery for greater savagery, and, hence, their hopelessness for greater hopelessness. These traits, so thoroughly ingrained, make for a feud. They make for modes of thought that make sexuality an act of faith or, alternatively, of sin, that turn families into warlike opponents, that consider love not only treason but also a transgression against faith and against family. Redemption and forgiveness, if at all possible, seem to take a threatening, hateful form. It is a world of violence among people, but it is not a world without beauty. Memory, emotion, and the metaphysical hold a more profound power, guiding our characters through this world, creating a common, more universal thread in their shared experiences, and linking one sequence to the next. With eerie percussion and haunting voices, music fills the air. The images are not just cold and empty, but lingering and fluid, or instead rushed and jarring. And at the center of it all is a young girl. Outwardly, she is not the most important part of our world, and there appears little reason for the film itself to bear her name as its title. But we find her in the middle of a war, caught between and punished by both sides. She is the center of a family, caught in her own understanding, or lack thereof, of faith, the most capable of love, and yet perhaps the most grief-stricken, the most tragic. Never losing hope, never unloved or unloving, Marketa is the beating heart of the astounding piece of art that allows her name to define it. Because, despite the cold, punishing nature of the world, it has beauty, it has love, and there is perhaps even a glimmer of hope, all found within her. Profoundly, stunningly, movingly, beautifully, it is a film that offers a once-in-a-lifetime experience and takes the shape of one of mankind's most masterful, precise, and perfect pieces of artistic storytelling.

"Shall we go find greener pastures?"

Added to:
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Ranking: 2019, First Time Watches
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