Valerie and Her Week of Wonders – review

Director: Jaromil Jires

Release Date: 1970

Contains spoilers

This is, without a doubt, one of the strangest vampire films you are likely to come across. A beautifully shot film that tracks a young girl’s sexual awakening through the lens of of a dream and fairytales. The film has been likened to the company of wolves in intent, but it is more dreamlike. To liken it to another vampire movie, one can only think of Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural. It is also, morally, quite disturbing – something I’ll look at in detail later.

The film is almost non-linear it is so surreal, and much of the story is open to being untrue. Statements are deliberately contradicted within the film. The film begins with views of Valerie (Jaroslava Schallerová) seen in various activities. We then see a young man, Eagle, with a torch. He climbs through a window and take the earrings Valerie wears, whilst she sleeps. She runs out and sees a vampire, she shouts weasel. We see the earrings returned and an apology issued. Eagle climbs into a loft and addresses the constable – who is also weasel the vampire – and tells him he lost the earrings.

We see Valerie walking. Blood drops onto a daisy, which she picks getting blood on her finger. She takes it to her room, which like the dress she wears is virginal white. We cut to views of a lake, seen through Valerie’s eyes, four women cavort in the lake – playing but also kissing. Valerie puts her hand to her chest as she watches, possibly wondering at her lack of breasts.

Having tea with her grandmother (Helena Anýzová) she is excited about the performers who are due in town. Her grandmother says that she should be more interested in the missionaries due, one will be staying with them. Valerie explains that she is no longer a child, the episode with the daisy represented the start of her first period. Grandmother suggests she gets rid of the earrings, they were her mother’s, bought before she went to the convent. Valerie’s father was a Bishop. A parade passes the house, it is a wedding parade. In the crowd is the vampire.

I said the film was morally disturbing and I think we should look at that. This is a sexual awakening film, much like Lemora – though unlike the other film I don’t think this made it to a Vatican banned list. Strange that, as this is more suggestive in what occurs to Valerie. The priest, who stays, tries to rape her, is scared off when she appears to die, hangs himself but survives and then burns Valerie at the stake – a fate she escapes because of the magical pearls in the earrings. He states she is a witch and tried to seduce him – though she did nothing.

The farmer’s wife is a victim of vampirism. This is cured by spending the night with Valerie and there is a strong hint that they became lovers. This represents sexual confusion, probably tied to the scene at the lake as the girls there were clearly friends and the comment is made between Valerie and the farmer’s wife about finding a friend.

Eagle makes overtures towards Valerie and yet it is stated that he is her brother. Though Valerie refuses him there is evidence that there is mutual attraction. All this is somewhat more in your face than Lemora and this is where the morality comes into it. Although it is not actually explicit, Schallerová was only thirteen when the film was shot. What saves the film is the fact that it was clearly meant to be allegorical of the confusions a person goes through at puberty and the fact that it isn’t actually exploitative, despite some mild nudity, nothing in the film actually titillates.

The vampirism represents much. The duplicity of men, the actual menstruation and, mainly, sexual jealousy. The Grandmother betrays Valerie in order to become a vampire and regain her youth. Though Valerie is aware of who she is, she poses as Elsa – stating she is a second cousin. As Elsa she tries to seduce Eagle, showing another incestuous aspect to the film. Through this medium the film also displays the three ages of womanhood with Elsa representing the maiden, Valerie’s mother (who appears later in the film) representing motherhood and the grandmother representing the crone – all three roles are played by Anýzová.

The vampires have many faces. The Weasel can appear as a young man at times, he also hides behind a mask. He plays the role of a bishop and claims he is actually Valerie’s father. He is actually changed into a weasel when Valerie slips the earrings into his wine.

The quality of the print on the redemption DVD is poor indeed and the film suffers from some awful cuts. The subtitling is substandard in that some dialogue is simply not subtitled. This is a strange one to review, as I say the use of such a young actress in the situations is morally disturbing, more so than if an older actress had played a younger girl. Yet all that happens is within Valerie’s own mind – it is representative of sexual confusion. It is also, allegedly, a political allegory about the situation in Czechoslovakia at the time – though I cannot pretend to understand that symbolism.

Yet, despite the disturbing aspects this is a beautifully shot fairytale, let down simply by the quality of the transfer. It is dreamlike but offers little substantial narrative, somehow it doesn’t need to. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.