Kytice

For many years unratable. The dilemma was always undecided by comparisons between  Jan Jirásek's touching music, the entrancing Linda Rybová, the dark Dan Bárta, the poetics of Zlatý kolovrat, and the brilliantly exaggerated Karel Roden, with the other side in the form of disgusting performance from Jana Švandová, the greediness of Polednice, and above all the total incomprehensibility of the film as a whole. But after the third or fourth screening, the bad things start to prevail so much that even the sensual first half pales in comparison. (08.04.2007)

What? Is this supposed to be Erben? THE Erben, a man of order, a man of severe punishment for every guilt? Erben, a man of austere and terrifying ballads? Please allow me to have a laugh. This is F.A. Brabec, a man who thinks a film poem equals a colorful orgy with well-known actors who often recite Erben's lyrics so poorly that my intestines knot. Where Erben is scary, Brabec is comical, where Erben is principled, Brabec is chaotic and indebted to the audience (so he’s shallow). If I break the rules of the fiction world of the original, I should at least replace them with my own, but Wild Flowers is the cheerful anarchy of chewed-up Erben themes. In addition to the poem “Dceřina kletba", it's a collection of cheesy rhymes reminiscent of the red library (“Vodník"), porn (“Zlatý kolovrat"), the completely illogical patchwork (“Štědrý večer"), the crazy comedy (“Polednice" !!!! Oh My God !!!! - and Roden, is that supposed to be a parody of Frankenstein???). If it were not sponsored by of one of the most important Czech literary monuments of the 19th century, if it were not hidden in the box of a film poem and to reveal it to the fullest: I am a colorful film for the whole family, who just wants to show that the F.A. Brabec is Mr. Cameraman, I’d accept it. But like this? The adaptation of a literary work should try to preserve its meaning, eventually interpret it in its own way and give it a new meaning. Brabec didn't do either. He just combined colorful pictures with music... It's like reading Erben word by word and not looking for any meaning between them. (10.02.2004)

Very good for Czech standards. The best parts are The Water Sprite and The Wedding Shirt. (23.04.2008)

What all of these selected tales have in common are the wonderful visuals, glorious music and great actors. However, the overall quality of the individual parts is, unfortunately, significantly unbalanced. Luckily, none of them slips into sub-average ground and most of them maintain a uniform, decent standard. Beautiful, poetic and, in some of the stories, very atmospheric, but overall nothing more than simple beautiful illustrations from the book. (31.01.2007)