Shadow of the Fern

"Just as I loved Marketa from my high school years, I could also speak of 'Shadow of the Fern'. I worked on this prose again with Vladimír Körner, who actually adapted foreign material for the first time here. There is a certain similarity between Vančura and Čapek. Both needed - I would almost say banal - a plot that would not hinder the development of intellectually rich reflections. In Čapek's case it was a story as if copied from rural calendars, so widely read in the countryside at the beginning of this century. 'Shadow of the Fern' is about two young offenders whom illusions lead to a tragic end. Nature in its eternity is their essential partner." - František Vláčil (1997)