A fisherman saves Anada, a woman adrift, from drowning. He takes her to his home, and protects her. Eventually, she occupies a larger place than was to be expected. He commits adultery with her, but his own wife seems to be in love with the strange young woman.
This is a ballad about love, hate, and a search for a way out of loneliness. It is a dramatic story about the strange potter, Martin Leaps, nicknamed Dragon, who is suspected by the villagers as the cause of natural disasters. He lost his wife, his home, and his freedom due to false accusations....
In the middle of the eighteenth century, at the time of the Prusso-Austrian War, a cuirassier, a hussar and an infantryman meet by chance and hide together in a secluded place. The war has left different marks on each of them, but they all long for normal human happiness. Although they initially...
A girl is transformed into a maple tree by her impulsive and angry mother. Three poor wandering musicians come by the tree and create instruments from it. Walking around the country instead of happiness they bring death everywhere with their cursed instruments. However they cannot get rid of them,...
The gamekeeper Straka lives by himself in the Bohemian forest hill. He has quarreled with his only son. He cannot come to terms with the fact that his son has abandoned his beloved forests and settled in a town. He has never even met his grandson Vasek. Following an illness, however, little Vasek...
Oldrich is the runt of his village, beaten by his father, bullied by the other boys. But he has imagination on his side, and a wiry toughness they can’t defeat. The village is in turmoil, because the Nazi occupiers have just retreated and the Red Army is advancing. Oldrich dodges amid the mayhem...
The story of 1947, when Bender's band, after a beating of the Nazis, tried to fight their way through Czechoslovakia to Austria. They come out of the forest to occupy the family's rural estate, kidnap doctors to help heal one of their wounded.
The unfortunate 1930s also befell the student Standa Půlpán. For existential reasons, he had to abandon his studies and entered the mines. However, he only slowly and with difficulty became close to the older miners, rough men who were closed in on themselves. Only his brave stand in rescuing...
A dark fable set in an early 1950s Czech village, a time of Soviet-style socialism which saw the implementation of collectivized agriculture and the mass closure of monasteries and convents.
Second part of the trilogy. Vasek is expected to go to Bulgaria for a holiday with his parents during the summer vacation, but the boy finds the prospect of spending the summer with his gamekeeper grandfather far more tempting than the seaside. On the last day of school Vasek picks up his final...
