In Vláčil’s remarkable first historical opus, set in early 18th-century Bohemia, the church and aristocracy collude to prosecute claims of witchcraft against an honest miller who possesses inconvenient knowledge of the natural world around him. Rudolf Milič’s vivid, expressionist cinematography and Zdeněk Liška’s score, enfolding period-evocative foley into its orchestration, mesh to conjure up the atmospherics and timeless themes of a long-past era to great transportive effect.

Courtesy of the National Film Archive in Prague.