Summary
A largely, and unfairly, forgotten film from director Otakar Vávra. Adapted from a 1944 novel by author Vladimír Neff, Třináctá komnata (The Thirteenth Chamber, 1968) falls between Vávra’s lyrical Romance pro křídlovku (Romance for the Bugle, 1966) and the raw political parable Kladivo na čarodějnice (The Witch Hunt, 1969). This poetic film tells the story of two children who decide to find out what lies beyond the walls of a mysterious villa concealed in a garden in Prague’s Malá Strana. Vávra and Neff collaborated on shifting the setting of the novel to the modern day. However, other than this change, the film retains the mysterious atmosphere of the novel, in which naive childlike fantasies blend with the real marriage problems encountered by a couple. Vávra and cinematographer Juraj Šajmovič experiment with alternating colour and black and white in the film. In their debut roles, Marcela Jelínková and Jan Buršík play the two children. Martin Růžek and Květa Fialová play the troubled couple.
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