VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS (1970) by Jaromil Jireš

"One of the most compelling movies to emerge from the Czech New Wave was Valerie and her Week of Wonders, directed by Jaromil Jireš. Released in 1970, the film is incredibly surreal and dream-like, a bizarre concoction of folkloric imagery and gothic horror mixed with female coming-of-age." - Aimee Ferrier (Far Out Magazine)

"The last truly independent work of the Czech New Wave, it was buried by the Soviet regime upon its release due to its political and sexual dissidence. A subversive work of phantasmagoria, Valerie was unlike anything else produced prior and remains a singular, beloved oddity within the small sub-genre of the psych-folk film." - Alicia Fletcher (TIFF)

"Valerie and Her Week of Wonders serves up an endlessly looping, nonlinear fairy tale, set in a quasi-medieval landscape. Ravishingly shot, enchantingly scored, and spilling over with surreal fancies, this enticing phantasmagoria from director Jaromil Jireš is among the most beautiful oddities of the Czechoslovak New Wave." - The Criterion Collection

"A work of both visceral immediacy and lingering allure, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a uniquely influential film, one of intoxicating sensation and unconscious immersion—and one, for that matter, often recognized and referenced more than actually seen. Directed by Jaromil Jireš and released just as Soviet suppression of socialist ideology spread to a similarly strict regulation of the arts, this surrealist fantasy from 1970 represents both the spiritual culmination of the Czech new wave and a brave bid for a newly liberated filmic sensibility.” - Jordan Cronk (Slant Magazine)

***

[Owen]

March is a month rich in symbolism, representing renewal, growth, and transformation. With that, I nominated the film "Valerie and Her Week of Wonders". The plot is simple. A 13 year old girl becomes a woman. But, what we get is a visual phantasmagoria featuring a series of fantastic oneiric events, or encounters, that are filled with strange transformations and reversals!

I look forward to your thoughts on Valerie and her symbolic coming-of-age story.

***This film is from the Czechslovak New Wave era, and is also a key work of the Prague Spring

Streaming:

• Available on The Criterion Channel

• Also available for free at:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9udh3i (Remember to enable subtitles)

https://archive.org/details/valerie-and-her-week-of-wonders-1970-eng-subs-valerie-a-tyden-divu