Pictures of the Old World (1972)

Pictures of the Old World arrives from a very particular moment in Czechoslovak cinema history. Completed in 1972, it was made in the shadow of the Soviet-led invasion of 1968 and the subsequent period of "normalisation," during which the cultural freedoms of the preceding decade were systematically rolled back. The film was banned by the Czechoslovak authorities almost immediately on completion, the official objection being that it presented an unduly pessimistic view of life under socialism. It would not receive a proper domestic release until 1988, meaning that for the better part of two decades it existed largely out of sight, a curious fate for a film that, whatever else you might say about it, is not remotely political in any obvious or polemical sense. The fact that honest observation was itself enough to alarm the censors tells you quite a lot about the era. Hanák had taken his cue from the photographs of Martin Martinček, a Slovak photographer whose portraits of elderly inhabitants of the Liptov region (a highland area in central Slovakia, flanked by the Tatra mountains) had earned considerable respect for their combination of documentary rigour and something approaching lyricism. Where Martinček captured single moments, Hanák set out to extend those moments into something closer to full human vignettes.

Dušan Hanák was a graduate of the Prague Film Academy, FAMU, and is considered one of the key figures of Slovak cinema, though he has always occupied a somewhat quieter corner of the Czechoslovak New Wave than contemporaries whose work you might know from reviews like Daisies or The Firemen's Ball. His approach here is documentary rather than fiction, and the production reflects that stripped-back ambition: made with Slovenská filmová tvorba and Slovenský film Bratislava, it runs to a modest 64 minutes and was clearly shot with a small crew. The black-and-white cinematography is the film's most immediately striking quality, rendering textures (rough plaster, heavy fabric, the grain of old timber) with a precision that recalls the still photographs that inspired it. Ladislav Chudík provides the narration, lending the film a measured, literary quality that frames the subjects with a degree of respect. As a document of rural Slovak life in the early 1970s, and of a way of living that was already vanishing, it occupies a place of genuine historical interest. As a piece of cinema, it is a rather more demanding proposition.

If you have spent any time with the documentary tradition of Eastern European ethnographic filmmaking, or with the broader category of slow cinema that emerged across various national cinemas during this period (comparable in some respects to other patient, community-focused films from around the same era, such as A River Called Titas), you will at least know what you are walking into. For other viewers, and for a sense of how this kind of observational documentary compares to other non-fiction work from very different corners of the world, it is also worth looking at Nom Tèw, another documentary reviewed here that concerns itself with communities living outside mainstream modern life.

Pictures of the Old World (1972), directed by Dušan Hanák, is a stark, observational documentary that profiles elderly residents of remote rural villages (primarily in Slovakia) who live in near-total isolation, clinging to traditions long abandoned by modern society. The film presents their lives with unflinching honesty: cramped huts, gnarled hands, sparse meals, and faces etched by decades of hardship. There’s static shots and raw interviews where subjects speak of loneliness, faith, survival, and resignation. On paper, it’s a valuable ethnographic record, a poetic meditation on time, memory, and human endurance. And visually, it’s striking: black-and-white cinematography that captures texture like a Bruegel painting, all mud, wool, and weathered wood. But as a viewing experience? It’s grueling. After ten minutes, the minimalism stops feeling profound and starts feeling inert. The pacing is so methodical. It’s clearly made with respect and artstic intent, and it’s historically significant (especially given it was banned by Czechoslovak authorities for “pessimism”). But unless you’re deeply invested in slow cinema or Eastern European folk anthropology, it’s hard not to check out long before the final frame. A worthy artifact, but not an engaging watch.

I think that assessment is pretty fair, honestly. There is something genuinely moving in knowing that the authorities found this film threatening enough to suppress for sixteen years, which in a strange way says more about the power of truthful images than almost any dramatic endorsement could. But knowing a film is historically important and actually sitting through it are two different things, and Hanák does test your patience in ways that feel less like artistic discipline and more like simple inertia. The Martinček photographs that inspired it manage to be haunting in the space of a single frame, and there are individual moments here that carry that same weight. Strung together over an hour at this pace, though, the effect is more exhausting than illuminating. Worth knowing about. Worth having seen once. Worth watching all the way through a second time? That, I suspect, is a question most people will answer the same way I did.

Rating: Not rated  | Year: 1972  | Watched: 2026-03-09

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: DocAlliance Films
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: DocAlliance Films
Rent: DocAlliance Films
Physical: Amazon US

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

Related on Movies With Macca

More from Czechoslovakia: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Men Without Wings (1946) · Daisies (1966) · The Firemen's Ball (1967)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More documentary: Letter from Siberia (1957) · Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Style Wars (1983) · Here and Elsewhere (1976)