The Valley of the Bees

The Valley of the Bees (Czech: Údolí včel) is a 1967 Czechoslovak black-and-white historical drama directed by František Vláčil, set in thirteenth-century Bohemia and telling the story of Ondřej, a young nobleman pledged as a child to the Teutonic Knights, who escapes the order and is pursued by his former mentor, the fanatic warrior monk Armin von Heide.¹ Produced by Filmové studio Barrandov, it premiered in Czechoslovak cinemas on 17 May 1968, shortly after Vláčil's celebrated medieval epic Marketa Lazarová, and was made back-to-back with that film using its costumes and props.^{2 • 3}

Production

After Marketa Lazarová (shot between 1964 and 1966) cost Barrandov Studios almost twice its planned budget, the producers insisted that Vláčil use some of that film's costumes and props for a second story set in the same period.³ The screenplay, based on a story by the writer Vladimír Körner, was written in fourteen days, and filming took place in the summer of 1967, beginning on 30 June and ending on the last day of October, a short schedule by Vláčil's standards; the director later called the production, made after the years-long ordeal of Marketa Lazarová, a vacation.^{7 • 13}

Most of the film was shot in the south Bohemian settlement of Kuklov, where the crew used the ruin of a local castle and an unfinished Gothic church of Saint Ondřej, with additional filming near the village of Volary and in northern Poland at Malbork and Lidzbark Warmiński.⁹ The cast drew on actors of Prague's Činoherní klub theater, including Petr Čepek, whom Vláčil met for the first time on this film and later cast again in Adelheid (1969).¹³ The film's working title was Smečka.²

Style and themes

Contemporary Czech critics most often read the film as a conflict between religious dogmatism and the naturalness of life, and it is commonly interpreted as a clash between fanatic faith, embodied by Armin, and the desire for a free, natural life, embodied by the hunted Ondřej.^{7 • 9} The Czech Film Archive describes it as a timeless story of the clash of fanaticism and personal freedom, and unlike Marketa Lazarová, which dramatizes Christianity's battle with paganism, The Valley of the Bees is a chamber drama of two men divided by their understanding of faith, focusing on the internal conflicts of its characters rather than battle scenes.^{5 • 14} The Czech Film Overview compares its philosophical, non-romanticized Middle Ages to Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957).¹

Released in May 1968, during the Prague Spring, the film was read by some commentators as a critique of ideology and oppression, and the Soviet forces that invaded Czechoslovakia later that year could view it as an attack on communism.¹¹ The return of the desperate Ondřej to the order was judged controversial enough by normalization-era (post-1968 Soviet-backed regime imposing censorship in Czechoslovakia) censors that a 1977 television version was created with a notably different, truncated ending.¹

Visually, the film is a black-and-white anamorphic widescreen work whose photography alternates dim interiors with overlit exteriors, long shots with extreme details, and at times approaches abstraction; František Uldrich's cinematography has been described as equal parts grimy, bleak, and beautiful.^{6 • 12} Large stretches of the film carry neither music nor dialogue, and Zdeněk Liška's stark score, together with prayer and monk chanting, forms a substantial part of the soundtrack.^{15 • 7}

Reception and legacy

Unlike Marketa Lazarová, which was named the best Czech film of all time in a 1998 poll, The Valley of the Bees did not find favor with critics and audiences on release; screenwriter Vladimír Körner recalled the first responses as terrible.^{1 • 16 • 13} Critics at the time also faulted it for standing outside the contemporary Czechoslovak New Wave, though abroad it later came to be called a pearl of the New Wave; the film has since been reappraised and is today widely viewed as a Czechoslovak film classic.^{13 • 1}

The film has circulated on home video through Facets Video's 2006 Region 1 DVD and Second Run's 2010 UK DVD, both praised for their picture quality.^{17 • 18} A new digitization funded by Milada Kučerová and Eduard Kučera returned the film to Czech cinemas in 2026.^{5 • 2} Although it will probably always remain in the shadow of its longer and more monumental predecessor, the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival catalog judges it one of the best films of the Czechoslovak 1960s.⁶

References

1. The Valley of the Bees (1967), Filmový přehled
2. Údolí včel (1967), Filmový přehled (Czech)
3. František Vláčil, Údolí Včel (Czechoslovakia, 1967), King's College London
4. The Valley of the Bees, Revue, Filmový přehled
5. The Valley of the Bees press kit, Národní filmový archiv
6. Udoli Vcel, Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival
7. Údolí včel, Revue, Filmový přehled (Czech)
8. The Valley of the Bees, FlixPatrol
9. Údolí včel (1968), Kinobox.cz
10. Údolí včel, Česká televize iVysílání
11. František Vláčil's The Valley of the Bees (Údolí včel, 1968), East European Film Bulletin
12. BandyGreensacks's review of The Valley of the Bees, Criticless
13. Vladimír Körner: První ohlasy Údolí včel byly příšerné, ČT24
14. Údolí včel: legendární film se vrací do kin, iDNES.cz
15. Blu-ray: The Valley of the Bees, The Arts Desk
16. Valley of the Bees, Electric Sheep
17. DVD Savant Review: The Valley of the Bees, DVD Talk
18. The Valley of the Bees, Second Run UK Import, DVD Talk

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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