From Mubi:
A list of films that do not so much depict narratives set in the past as they convey that past itself, without comment, without judgment or affectation, without exaggeration or sensationalism or any other such manipulation of the fabric of the reality that they communicate; but with a simplicity, with naturalism, honesty.
Many "period dramas" or "historical films" are in fact modern narratives, stories with characters that inhabit contemporary psychological frameworks and exhibit contemporary moral ideals and so on;
The films here are films that live, films where the setting and the "extras" of the background do not simply supply an aesthetic backdrop to the actions of the protagonists, but comprise instead a teeming, moving, dynamic, noisy environment within which events occur. Indeed, some of these films have not a single identifiable protagonist, and many of them have achieved their naturalism through employing locals and villagers instead of professional actors,
