In his first feature film, Juraj Herz established himself as an original auteur with a flair for refined style. In accord with Hana Bělohradská’s novel Poslední večeře (The Last Supper), he created a dark atmosphere filled with suspicion and despair around a criminal plot. Znamení Raka (1966) is set in the hospital where the crime will take place. In a consulting room, somebody will murder Dr. Hahn – and due to the physician’s reputation as a womaniser, the list of suspects grows… Herz filled the unusual setting with bizarre figures, among whom shines the character of the terminally ill Prokopa, as embodied by Iva Janžurová. Znamení Raka (Sign of the Cancer) faced a series of problems, as Herz was forced to change the post-synchronisation and to omit a series of sexually explicit scenes. Real-life physicians, outraged by the unqualified communist physician character (Ilja Prachř), also protested against the film.

Znameni.Raka.1967.1080p.WEB.AAC.x264-PAMETNiK.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 24 min
Size: 	3.60 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1920x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	6 000 kb/s
BPP: 	0.116
Audio
#1:  	Czech 2.0ch AAC LC @ 125 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/DFB56570CC17182/Znameni.Raka.1967.1080p.WEB.AAC.x264-PAMETNiK.mkv

Language(s):Czech
Subtitles:English, Czech

The post Juraj Herz – Znameni raka AKA Sign of the Cancer (1967) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
In 1900, Stepha, the vivacious 30 year old daughter of a wealthy couple, agrees to marry her cousin Paul, who has accumulated large debts as an Austrian army officer. Paul refuses to work or to consummate the marriage, and then his health steadily declines.

Oil.Lamps.1971.576p.BluRay.AAC1.0.x264-Slope.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 44 min
Size: 	3.85 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	956x576 
Aspect ratio:  	5:3
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	5 166 kb/s
BPP: 	0.391
Audio
#1:  	Czech 1.0ch AAC LC @ 119 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/402FBF795AE58A4/Oil.Lamps.1971.576p.BluRay.AAC1.0.x264-Slope.mkv

Language(s):Czech
Subtitles:English

The post Juraj Herz – Petrolejové lampy AKA Oil Lamps (1971) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

While driving to Poland, a Czech man and woman have an argument. The woman gets out of the car to relieve herself, and the driver of the car runs over her, killing her. Meanwhile, in a Czech mountain town, a young man inquires after the girl, which piques the interest of the police.

Holka na zabití AKA A Girl Fit to Be Killed.1976.avi

General
Container:  	AVI
Runtime: 	1h 37mn
Size: 	1.34 GiB
Video
Codec: 	XviD
Resolution: 	720x544 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 724 Kbps
BPP: 	0.176
Audio
#1:  	2.0ch AC-3 @ 224 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/5CC4DB071E9704A/Holka_na_zabiti_AKA_A_Girl_Fit_to_Be_Killed.1976.avi

Language(s):Czech, Polish, German
Subtitles:None.

The post Juraj Herz – Holka na zabití AKA A Girl Fit to Be Killed (1976) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Czech filmmakers have several times been galvanised by the writings of Jaroslav Havlíček. The result in most cases was a film that merged the quality of the literary template and the personality of the particular filmmaker, whether it be Barbora Hlavsová (1942) directed by Martin Frič, Prokletí domu Hajnů (The Curse of the Hajns’ House, 1988) directed by Jiří Svoboda, or Jaromil Jireš’s Helimadoe (1992). However, the most famous adaptation of a Havlíček novel is the psychological drama Petrolejové lampy (Oil Lamps). The film is based on an eponymous novel first published in 1935 as Vyprahlé touhy (Parched Desires) and released again in 1944 following revisions and a change of title. The motion picture was made in 1971 according to a screenplay from Lubor Dohnal, Václav Šašek and Juraj Herz, the last of whom also directed the film. The director, who achieved fame in the 1960s with his excellent drama Spalovač mrtvol (The Cremator, 1968), made Petrolejové lampy into an expressive account of unfulfilled female desires. The main protagonist of the film, set in the early 20th century, is wealthy thirtysomething Štěpa Kiliánová, whose liberalism makes it difficult for her to find a suitor among her social circles in a small town. She ends up marrying her worldly cousin Pavel for whom she harbours a naïve admiration despite knowing that he is merely interested in the dowry. It is only after the wedding that Štěpa finds out that her husband suffers from syphilis. She’s now not only unable to have children, she’s also to suffer her husband’s physical and mental decline… The role of Štěpa was delivered by Iva Janžurová, 30 at the time, in one of her stand-out performances. Janžurová also starred in the main double role in Herz’s romantic drama Morgiana (1972). The actress found a worthy counterpart in Petr Čepek who performed Pavel as an impressive study of the devastation of a conquering, elegant manhood. In 2006, Herz directed a theatrical performance of Petrolejové lampy on the stage of Prague theatre Na Jezerce with Bára Hrzánová and Radek Holub in the two leading roles. In 2013, Radim Špaček and David Jařab recorded a theatrical performance of Petrolejové lampy, which Jařab staged with the Prague Chamber Theatre. The stars on this occasion were Karel Roden and Ivana Uhlířová.

Petrolejove.lampy.1971.WEB.AAC.H264-CHRONOPHOBiA.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 39 min
Size: 	3.73 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1920x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	5 163 kb/s
BPP: 	0.100
Audio
#1:  	Czech 2.0ch AAC LC @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/4BD7E710C1A8FB5/Petrolejove.lampy.1971.WEB.AAC.H264-CHRONOPHOBiA.mkv

Language(s):Czech
Subtitles:English, Spanish, Czech

The post Juraj Herz – Petrolejové lampy AKA Oil Lamps (1971) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Czechoslovak New Wave iconoclast Juraj Herz’s terrifying, darkly comic vision of the horrors of totalitarian ideologies stars a supremely chilling Rudolf Hrušínský as the pathologically morbid Karel Kopfrkingl, a crematorium manager in 1930s Prague who believes fervently that death offers the only true relief from human suffering. When he is recruited by the Nazis, Kopfrkingl’s increasingly deranged worldview drives him to formulate his own shocking final solution. Blending the blackest of gallows humor with disorienting expressionistic flourishes—queasy point-of-view shots, distorting lenses, jarring quick cuts—the controversial, long-banned masterpiece The Cremator is one of cinema’s most trenchant and disturbing portraits of the banality of evil.

Features:
New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Much improved new English subtitle translation

10.7GB | 1h 40min | 1794×1080 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/46BE88A3219AEBA/The.Cremator.1969.1080p.Criterion.Bluray.FLAC.1.0.x264-SaL.mkv

Language:Czech
Subtitles:English

The post Juraj Herz – Spalovac mrtvol AKA The Cremator (1969) (HD) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A more horrific and gloomy version of The Beauty and the Beast. Julie, the youngest daughter of a bankrupt merchant, sacrifices her life in order to save her father. She goes to an enchanted castle in the woods and meets Netvor, a bird-like monster. As Netvor begins to fall in love with Julie, he must suppress his beastly urge to kill her.

3.19GB | 1h 31mn | 986×720 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/FE3E088CF240849/Panna.a.netvor.AKA.Beauty.and.the.Beast.1978.720p.Bluray.AAC.1.0.x264-SaL.mkv

Language(s):Czech
Subtitles:English, German

The post Juraj Herz – Panna a netvor aka Beauty and the Beast (1978) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A mill owner in the Sudetenland and his family’s lives are changed as Europe heats up in 1938.

Habermann (Czech: Habermannův mlýn) is a 2010 Czech-German-Austrian drama film directed by Juraj Herz. In the story, a German mill owner in the Sudetenland and his family’s lives are changed as Europe heats up in 1938.

Quote:
The German-Czech-Austrian production “Habermann” is being marketed — with the tagline “War is over; vengeance has begun” — as a look at a corner of history that is little known in America: the expulsion of millions of ethnic German civilians from parts of Europe after World War II. It’s a tricky tale to tell; the film’s opening and closing scenes of Germans in Czechoslovakia being rounded up and loaded onto trains consciously echo the familiar imagery of Jews being sent to Nazi concentration camps.

“Habermann,” however, consists almost entirely of the background to those brutal scenes. It’s the story of the title character, a more or less good German and minor-league Schindler who tries to mitigate the worst excesses of the seven-year Nazi occupation of the Sudetenland while protecting the Czech workers at his saw mill. As directed by the Czech veteran Juraj Herz in prestige-television style, the bulk of the film is a classically proportioned and tasteful wartime soap opera. Even though we know the closing spasm of violence is coming, it’s so out of tune with what’s come before that it’s more disorienting than powerful.

The depictions of cosmopolitan Germans and mostly avaricious, bestial Czechs are likely to stir strong emotions among some viewers, but over all ‘Habermann’ is more potboiler than political or historical statement. A subplot involving Habermann’s half-Jewish wife sits awkwardly athwart the central story, supplying pathos and dangerously facile analogies.

(From New York Times)

2.24GB | 1 h 44 min | 1024×554 | mkv

http://nitroflare.com/view/0152136795D2EA1/Habermann.576p.mkv

Language:German, some Czech
Subtitles:English & German hardsubs for the few Czech parts

The post Juraj Herz – Habermann (2010) first appeared on Cinema of the World.