Hugh Whitemore adapted Bruce Chatwin's novel for this tale of a New York antique dealer who travels to Prague to buy the porcelain collection of the late Baron Utz, only to become embroiled in the wreckage of the dead man's unusual life history after he discovers that the collection is missing.
Acting
Mueller-Stahl's heartbreaking fragility behind aristocratic composure.
Production
Authentic Prague locations shot weeks after the Velvet Revolution.
Director
George Sluizer
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Bruce Chatwin died of AIDS before filming; the novel's meditation on collecting was partly his own reckoning with mortality and material obsession.
Shot in 1991, the film captures Prague's haunted limbo—Soviet decay without yet the polish of capitalism, making Utz's villa feel like a genuine archaeological site.
US
GB
