LordHaart I don't know how could someone dislike a movie like this one. Most important to this movie is not story, but picture and emotions. I was really astonished by this movie and I still think its one of the best Czech movies and its picture is one of the best of all films. In my opinion the best part was The Water Spirit. Its ending with desperate man sitting in the mud and crying over his loss of wife and child is simply breathtaking. These emotions are so deep that everyone must feel it with the Spirit. Also the picture of girl falling from the bridge is fantastic. I think this movie is definitely worth seeing for the feelings inside..

Lucie This movie is superb! It is a great way to learn more about Czech and Slavic culture.I strongly recommend to read the book first, to get some idea what it is about. The movie itself gives useful hints how to interpret the ballads in the book. Some hints are really unexpected and may change your interpretation crucially. For instance the portrayal of the water spirit. It is breath-taking! Various bright and dim colors back up the overall mood and create amazing atmosphere. Some horror and/or thriller-like elements are used, making the overall impression stronger. It is not an easy movie at all. The life portrayed in the movie and our present day life have a lot of common features, too.

michal.kasparek-2 I saw this film before two weeks. It's kitsch, boring and totally unintelligible for people, that haven't read the original book. There are many fact mistakes too... actors plays rather poor, you must laugh even in the sad moments. It was a totally waste of time.

jethro-21 Like the guy from Alaska, I just came back from Europe this winter vacation, and in my stay at Prague I saw this movie. I had been seeing movies in all the countries I visited just to get a feel for their cinema (these are all non-subtitled foreign films i couldnt understand a word of), Schule in Germany, MeseAuto in Hungary, Billy Elliot in Austria and this.This film was extraodinary. The interestin thing is that we never understood any of the other movies and just had to figure things out from the visuals, like watching TV on mute. But this movie had very little dialogue anyway, so it didnt matter. I found myself overwhelmed by the cinematography. It reminded me a lot of Akira Kurosawa's Dreams.As far as I know, there was a famous poet who wrote 15 short stories, and this film is 7 of them (complete with 7 candles that one by one get blown out before each story). I'm not sure, but I took this to be a little like the movie Seven, where each candle, and thus, each story, represents one of the seven deadly sins. But because there were 15 stories in all, I'm not sure how well this theory holds up.This is an incredible movie to try to pick apart. THere is so much symbolism and there is no language barrier. If you ever make it to the Czech Republic or Prague, specifically, check this movie out.