Based on the only extensive prose work by the surrealist painter Josef Capek, Shades of Fern most resembles the philosophical fairy tales and fables of Josef’s older brother, the legendary Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek. Two young poachers, more boys than men, kill a gamekeeper when they are caught illegally hunting. Panicked, they retreat into a forest that grows steadily more forbidding and deadly as their fear for the future—and guilt over their action—mounts. Loosely based on hundreds of oral folk tales and legends that haunt the woods of Czechoslovakia, Vlácil’s contemporary updating artistically underscores the relationship between man and nature, crime and punishment, isolation and society, and guilt and memory.

電影改編自著名的捷克猶太作家阿尔诺什特·卢斯蒂格Arnošt Lustig的同名小說,其并搬上银幕。 故事讲20个美国犹太富商在意大利被德军俘获，纳粹骗说要将他们与被盟军俘虏的党卫队军官交换，以此诱使他们不断支付贿金，充作重获自由的“买路钱”。其中一个美国商人，还花钱向纳粹买下了年轻漂亮的犹太女孩卡特琳娜的性命。姑娘既是纳粹的卧底，又成了这场残忍游戏的观察者。到最后，富 商们一无所有时，纳粹便命令所有人脱光衣服，把他们送进毒气室，还要卡特琳娜为他们唱歌。姑娘在最后关头夺过军官的枪，打死了他。卡特琳娜自己也和囚犯们一起，终被乱枪射杀。

After an attack against the guard of the Third Reich, Nazi repression intensifies, and the Czechoslovakian resistance's organized sabotage in an aircraft factory leads to Gestapo shootings. Now, factory worker Petr Lom (Gustav Nezval) must make a choice: Is he prepared to sacrifice his life to save his co-workers?

A workman is accidentally sent into outer space, where he meets an alien that can make himself invisible. They return to Earth in the year 2447. Complications ensue.