Against All

The conclusion of the trilogy truly lives up to its name. Everyone is against everyone, and the most surprising element isn't so much the encounter with the Taborite Picards, but rather the recasting of actors from previous films. For instance, Vlasta Matulová transitions from the role of Czech Queen Žofie to the lesser nobility as Ctibor’s daughter Zdena, Václav Voska forgets his role as Čeněk of Wartenberg and becomes the Taborite priest Petr Kániš, or Jaroslav Vojta swiftly transforms from the baker Joha to Šimon, known as Ohnivec. These period missteps are more jarring than the trivial young love, previously portrayed by Marie Tomášová and later replaced by Jana Rybářová in the finale. Otakar Vávra's Hussite trilogy is an inconsistent work in every conceivable aspect and will continue to represent the heaviest burden from the 1950s for a long time, as we Czechs have learned to think differently about the socialist realist films, but the revolutionary Hussitism still remains an unresolved question, one that struggles to resist the appeal of audience-attracting battle scenes. (13/09/2024)

Even his previous film Jan Žižka showed that the strength of Vávra's trilogy could lie in the battle scenes, and it's precisely the film Against All that fully confirms this. They stand out for their very good execution, where you really feel that you are on a medieval battlefield. It's not as deep as Jan Hus, but I enjoyed it more than the other film. (28/07/2017)