In the 1600s, an overzealous clergy hauls innocent women in front of tribunals, forces them to confess to imaginary witchery, and engages in brutal torture and persecution of their subjects.
Direction
Vávra's procedural horror turns bureaucracy into slow torture.
Acting
Šmeral's Boblig: chilling bureaucratic evil in a cassock.
Cinematography
Shadow-drenched chambers where candlelight barely fights the rot.
Director
Otakar Vávra
Elo Romančík
Lautner
Vladimír Šmeral
Boblig
Soňa Valentová
Zuzana
Josef Kemr
Ignác
Lola Skrbková
Maryna
Jiřina Štěpničková
Dorota Groerová
Marie Nademlejnská
Davidka
Miriam Kantorková
Tobiásová
Lubor Tokoš
Sattler
Blažena Holišová
Sattlerová
Jaroslava Obermaierová
Líza
Jiří Holý
farár König
Čestmír Řanda
dékan Vojtech Winkler
Blanka Waleská
Countess de Galle
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during the Prague Spring's aftermath, it's a thinly veiled attack on Soviet show trials and Communist purges—Vávra somehow got it past censors by setting it in 1678.
The 'witch test' scene where women are thrown into water—if they float they're guilty, if they drown they're innocent—remains one of cinema's most maddening depictions of catch-22 logic.
XC
