#czech new wave
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)
Directed by Jaromil Jires
Doomsy’s Rating: 97/100 (on my Great Films list!)
Easily the best film I’ve seen this year, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a magical and spellbinding surrealist steampunk-goth horror film that will stay with you long after it’s done. Through each phenomenally-staged scene, we follow Valerie, a 13-year-old girl who starts the film Carrie-style with the arrival of her first period. We then watch as her entire world collapses and becomes a psychedelic fantasy land of predatory vampires, salacious fire-and-brimstone priests and the benign witches she befriends to save her from the demons that represent the evils of men. The setting, as oblique as its imagery, is a medieval-inflected Earth of arcane architecture, sinister machines and devils and gods around every corner. The haunting, trippy visuals clash against the peaceful, melodic baroque music to further distort Valerie’s perceptions of herself and the people around her as they literally transform into archetypal objects of Nietzschean and Jungian origin. Good becomes Evil, parents become incestuous beings of carnal lust and boys become monsters capable of heinous lechery. In the same way that puberty is the end of innocence, it also marks the shift in adults from trustworthy caretakers to figures of abandonment and solipsism. If you have any interest in the Czech New Wave, surrealism, or goth shit in general, this is an absolutely stunning piece of work and deserves all the plaudits in the world for being such a singular experience. Wow!
Watched on Criterion Channel.
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