The Devil's Trap

A village in sixteenth century Bohemia. There is a drought and the wells have dried. A miller lives in the village: the man knows the underground watercourses and has found water on his own land with that knowledge. The church asks where the knowledge came from. An inquisitor arrives in the district and accuses him of witchcraft. The village splits in two, and the relationship between his son and the landowner's daughter is drawn into the matter. František Vláčil directs. The opposition at the centre is knowledge against belief. What the miller knows is knowledge of nature; the church counts it as a threat because it cannot explain it, and the film shows that mechanism plainly. Vláčil is among the most formalist directors of Czech cinema; black and white images, wide angles and landscape are the narrative's real instruments. The caves and underground water systems in the region where it was shot are real and the narrative uses that geography directly. It announces the large period films Vláčil would later make; the same interest is present here. The narrative uses few words; events are largely told through image and place. Who it is for: viewers who like Czech cinema and formally strong period films. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, the characters are thin, and some conflicts stay closed without the historical context.