A dark, lyrical fairy tale unlike anything else out there, the Czechoslovak cult item in waiting The Golden Fern (Zlaté kapradí) will hold special appeal to fans of the recent wave of folk horror. A crucial name but not quite as prominent as some of his peers, director Jiří Weiss turned out some very memorable films over the course of his long career (including 90 Degrees in the Shade and Romeo, Juliet and Darkness) but really pulled out all the stops with this dreamlike confection of aggressive sound mixing and delicate supernatural fatalism. Most frequently this seems to be compared to The Saragossa Manuscript, probably due to the imagery and costumes in its second half, though you could also draw parallels to melancholy fantastic morality plays like The Queen of Spades and the winter ghost story from Kwaidan and The Snow Woman. Rarely seen outside its native country, this is another welcome rediscovery from Deaf Crocodile courtesy of its Blu-ray special edition available in standard and deluxe editions-- the latter featuring a lovely slipcase with art by Hans Woody and a 60-page illustrated book with an intro by filmmaker Alexander Payne and essays by Peter Hames, Walter Chaw, and William Robertson.

Deep within a forest, a young shepherd (Ferat Vampire's Olmer) discovers a unique, golden fern growing in the foliage and encounters its unearthly caretaker, Lesanka (Chadimová), a forest fairy. The two become smitten, and she extracts a glowing, magical seed from the fern that she sews into a shirt to shield him from harm. When he goes off to war, the general's entitled, bulling daughter (Smutná, the director's wife) uses her wiles to seduce him and issue a series of improbable challenges that will ultimately test his magical protection.

A large portion of the effectiveness of this film has to be attributed to its remarkable cinematographer, Bedřich Baťka, who famously pulled off jaw-dropping work on Marketa Lazarová (and naturally went on to shoot Little Darlings). The storyline and dialogue here are actually fairly sparse; in fact, apart from a sliver of puzzling narration, there isn't any spoken dialogue until several minutes into the film. The soundtrack is quite a feat though with an aggressive sound mix relying heavily on natural sounds to create a thick atmosphere matched by the visuals, bookended by stunning sequences out in the wild.

Given that there isn't exactly a lengthy video history for this one, the Deaf Crocodile Blu-ray makes for the ideal introduction here with a mostly pristine presentation that brings out the subtle gradations of lighting throughout. A couple of grease-mark points and bits of damage pop up, but it's fleeting and nothing very distracting. As with Saragossa, this was shot with anamorphic lenses that cause some stretching in close-ups a la the infamous CinemaScope mumps; that isn't a defect of the transfer. The DTS-HD MA 2.0 Czech mono soundtrack sounds excellent and features optional English or English SDH subtitles. A new audio commentary by Hames and regular label contributor Irena Kovarova is up to the usual high standards with a thorough, informed history of the film's place in Czechoslovak cinema, the director's history, the cultural elements at play here, related filmmakers and literary works, and lots more. A wild new video interview with the filmmaker’s son, Jiří Weiss Jr. (58m12s), in conversation with Deaf Crocodile's Dennis Bartok over Zoom, is a great listen about his father’s life and career including a lengthy, amazing story about his experiences during World War II and memories of his parents (but mostly growing up around his dad). A video essay by film historian Evan Chester (15m53s) is a good primer as well etching out the basics of the director's career and approach as well as pointing out significant points of the narrative. Finally you get a trio of Weiss shorts from the 1930s: 1936's The Sun Shines on the River Lužnice (Nad Lužnicí Svítí Slunce) (9m58s), a music-scored pastoral snapshot of his friends enjoying canoeing and hanging around outdoors; 1937's Song of Ruthenia (Píseň O Podkarpatské Rusi) (11m36s), a portrait of farm life including some gorgeous scenery and eye-popping looks at log workers in action on the water; and 1939's The Rape of Czechoslovakia (Uloupení Československa) (16m52s), in which C. Day-Lewis (Daniel's dad) narrates an ode to the country's people and history from its founding in 1918 (which the director remembered as a young boy) to its overtaking by the Munich Agreement.

Reviewed on January 18, 2025