Face of Centuries: Jan S. Kolár and the Afterlives of History

Written by Stephen Broomer

“Face of Centuries: Jan S. Kolár and the Afterlives of History” is an 18-minute visual essay created by experimental filmmaker and film scholar Stephen Broomer for Deaf Crocodile's Blu-ray collection of The Arrival from the Darkness (1921) and St. Wenceslas (1929). Its subject is the filmmaking career and artistic legacy of Czech director Jan S. Kolár (1896–1973), one of the pioneers of Czech cinema. The essay examines Kolár's place in early Czech filmmaking, including his experimentation across genres and the historical significance of his surviving films. The two principal features offer quite different windows into his work: - The Arrival from the Darkness: occult fantasy, resurrection, alchemy, black magic and time travel. - St. Wenceslas: an ambitious historical epic about tenth-century Bohemia, political conflict and the establishment of Christianity