The Valley of the Bees

Year: 1968

Country: Czechoslovakia

Director: Frantisek Vlácil

Cast: Petr Cepek, Jan Kacer, Vera Galatíková, Zdenek Kryzánek

IMBD: Link


Language : Czech

Subtitles : English, Italian






Frantisek Vlácil, director of Valley of the Bees, might be considered (and usually is) a phenomenon in the context of Czechoslovak cinema of the 1960s. Being older that the third generation of FAMU (the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague) and making films that were distinctly different from anything else, he did not really belong to the so-called Czechoslovak New Wave. His cinematic language is more closely aligned with that of static image and non- realistic sound, rather than direct testimony on everyday and the poetry of light and movement. His chef-d'oeuvre Marketa Lazarová is long but not epic, crude but not realistic, employing both Christian and pagan symbolism while still remaining rather worldly. Valley of the Bees bears many similarities, probably but not exclusively because it was developed in the same period, as an offset of its more spectacular predecessor.

The film presents 1960s black and white photography at its best. Though shot in anamorphic widescreen, the film does not avoid central or otherwise extreme compositions. Shots where characters stare directly into camera are not rare. Dim interior shots alternate with overlit exteriors. Long shots are followed by extreme details. And sometimes the images become almost abstract, as they trace the structures and surfaces of objects and human body. All of these, as well as rather non-naturalistic sound design, quite surprisingly add to the perceived realism of the film as a whole. Even today it surprises with its unusually modern concept of historical genre.

Just like Vlácil's Marketa Lazarová, the film is an adaptation of a novel. Valley of the Bees was written by Vladimír Körner and adapted for the screen by the author himself, in cooperation with Vlácil. While Marketa Lazarová took Vlacil years to develop and finish, Valley of the Bees was, according to the director himself, quite easy to put together. And although the film will probably always stay in the shadow of its longer and more monumental predecessor, it certainly can be considered one of the best films of the Czechoslovak 1960s, if not Czech cinema in general. (Anna Batistová)










[ About file ]


Name: Valley Of The Bees.Frantisek Vlácil.1968.BluRay.mkv

Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2024 23:20:51 +0100

Size: 12,863,874,284 bytes (12267.946514 MiB)


[ Magic ]


File type: Matroska data

File type: EBML file, creator matroska


[ Generic infos ]


Duration: 01:40:27 (6026.927 s)

Container: matroska

Production date: Mon, 07 Oct 2024 11:17:28 +0100

Total tracks: 4

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Writing application: mkvmerge v87.0 ('Black as the Sky') 64-bit


[ Relevant data ]


Resolution: 1920 x 816

Width: multiple of 32

Height: multiple of 16

Average DRF: 18.210744

Standard deviation: 2.66688

Std. dev. weighted mean: 2.613482


[ Video track ]


Codec ID: V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC

Resolution: 1920 x 816

Frame aspect ratio: 40:17 = 2.352941 (~2.35:1)

Pixel aspect ratio: 1:1 = 1

Display aspect ratio: 40:17 = 2.352941 (~2.35:1)

Framerate: 24 fps

Stream size: 12,451,268,672 bytes (11874.455139 MiB)

Duration (bs): 01:40:27 (6026.874904 s)

Bitrate (bs): 16527.661677 kbps

Qf: 0.43955


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Sampling frequency: 48000 Hz

Channels: 2

Sample size: 16-bit


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Codec ID: A_OPUS

Sampling frequency: 48000 Hz

Channels: 2


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I-slices: 738 ( 0.510 %)

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[ DRF analysis ]


average DRF: 18.210744

standard deviation: 2.66688

max DRF: 28


DRF<3: 0 ( 0.000 %)

DRF=3: 2 ( 0.001 %)

DRF=4: 0 ( 0.000 %)

DRF=5: 2 ( 0.001 %)

DRF=6: 21 ( 0.015 %)

DRF=7: 41 ( 0.028 %)

DRF=8: 16 ( 0.011 %)

DRF=9: 63 ( 0.044 %)

DRF=10: 146 ( 0.101 %)

DRF=11: 482 ( 0.333 %)

DRF=12: 1013 ( 0.700 %)

DRF=13: 3230 ( 2.233 %)

DRF=14: 8029 ( 5.551 %) #

DRF=15: 9876 ( 6.828 %) #

DRF=16: 12787 ( 8.840 %) ##

DRF=17: 17892 ( 12.370 %) ##

DRF=18: 24501 ( 16.939 %) ###

DRF=19: 25351 ( 17.526 %) ####

DRF=20: 15275 ( 10.560 %) ##

DRF=21: 10382 ( 7.178 %) #

DRF=22: 7216 ( 4.989 %) #

DRF=23: 4723 ( 3.265 %) #

DRF=24: 1948 ( 1.347 %)

DRF=25: 907 ( 0.627 %)

DRF=26: 293 ( 0.203 %)

DRF=27: 448 ( 0.310 %)

DRF=28: 1 ( 0.001 %)

DRF>28: 0 ( 0.000 %)


P-slices average DRF: 17.182738

P-slices std. deviation: 2.278883

P-slices max DRF: 27


B-slices average DRF: 18.420576

B-slices std. deviation: 2.676665

B-slices max DRF: 28


I-slices average DRF: 14.761518

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I-slices max DRF: 22


[ Edition entry ]


UID: 542776512

Hidden: No

Selected by default: No

Playlist: No

Chapters:

00:00:00,000-00:09:21,000: chapter 01 {und}

00:09:21,000-00:14:50,000: chapter 02 {und}

00:14:50,000-00:24:50,000: chapter 03 {und}

00:24:50,000-00:31:37,000: chapter 04 {und}

00:31:37,000-00:45:01,000: chapter 05 {und}

00:45:01,000-00:51:32,000: chapter 06 {und}

00:51:32,000-00:59:37,000: chapter 07 {und}

00:59:37,000-01:10:20,000: chapter 08 {und}

01:10:20,000-01:17:48,000: chapter 09 {und}

01:17:48,000-01:27:10,000: chapter 10 {und}

01:27:10,000-01:34:10,000: chapter 11 {und}

01:34:10,000-01:40:26,927: chapter 12 {und}


This report was created by AVInaptic (01-11-2020) on 3-12-2024 03:13:47