The Fifth Horseman is Fear
(…a pátý jezdec je Strach)

A film by Zbyněk Brynych
Czechoslovakia, 1964

A Jewish physician in Nazi-occupied Prague is compelled to work cataloguing the homes and possessions of his countrymen as they are displaced to designated ghettos. When he helps an injured resistance fighter, he is plunged into a moral and ethical dilemma, and begins a nightmarish odyssey to help save the man.

Focussing on the intense anxiety, paranoia and terror prevalent in a fascist state, Zbyněk Brynych’s film subverts its historical context, creating an expressionistic, thinly disguised allegory about communist Czechoslovakia - or indeed any totalitarian system - that is richly atmospheric and frighteningly real.

“A nearly perfect film... it is unmistakably the work of a master... a beautiful, distinguished work.” Roger Ebert

ON BLU-RAY & DVD AUGUST 2021