A potent mix of straight sex, lesbianism, incest, pedophilia, vampirism, paganism, wiccan practices and other assorted deviancy. A lot of symbolism is used, so that reality merges with fantasy and the material world merges with the virtual. As the film progresses, it is never very clear as to who the villain is, and who is the virgin. However, one premise is obvious: almost everyone lusts after the female protagonist, and although she appears angelic, she is also no stranger to the wiles of men, including lustful priests, vampires and even her own father or brother. Watchable, at least once, for the waif-like beauty, Valerie, and her forays into a mystical, magical and surreal world, where corpses converse with the living, and brothers lust for their sisters.

Exquisite aesthetic is not enough for me, especially in itself. I want layered stratagems, nested worlds, the built of an oblique carpentry, the stuff that Lynch deals in, Wojciech Has, Ruiz; or a unified space impregnated with those things, as in the films of Antonioni or Resnais. I want magic, the spontaneous and impromptu, to well up from a familiar view of life, poetry from mundane essentials, for example the scenes of Tokyo roads in Solyaris is the most amazing rite of passage I have seen. It's passage from a tangible world.With something like this I have no point of entry. There is no double perspective, or one foot in a world that matters. It's one long psychosexual dream stirred up from restless sleep, a young girl's guilt nightmare of a throbbing sexuality.Life inside the grandmother's house is sterile, but outside it booms with activity and rigor. Of course once out there, the adult world poses a constant threat; its web of dark, barely comprehensible forces - none too subtly dressed up in monk garbs, there's also a demonic figure in black who addresses from the pulpit a congregation of fearful maidens - out to drink life from youth. The film appropriates suitable imagery from the vampire film.So even though the artistry is excellent, the nightmare effective, I am just not at all interested in teasing out symbolic detail from a rural pageant. There is this one layer, and the most pressing question for the film seems to be how much of that is a dream. But again, something hardly worth puzzling over.This is a problem in general with the surreal part of the Czech school; while inventive craftsmen, they cannot seem to layer their narratives around a solid, penetrating core. So we get beautiful but scattershot imagination. On the other hand, their comedies are superb for the same reason.

Second Run DVD brought out an excellent edition of this film in 2008. It's a new digital transfer that, while not quite up to Criterion standards, does justice to this criminally neglected film. Nice extra features, too: an informative introduction by film historian Michael Brooke; an interview with Jaroslava Schallerova (Valerie); and a superb booklet, containing an in-depth essay and a lovely appreciative piece by Joseph A. Gervasi of Exhumed Films. This dream of a film seems to have been a one-off for director Jaromil Jires, whose other films - from what I've read - appear to be more conventional in scope. There are so many films that deserve to be consigned to the celluloid bonfire. This is not one of them. Well done, Second Run!

Beautiful, disturbing, erotic, dreamlike... These are a few words that can sum up Jaromil Jires' deliriously bizarre fairy tale "Valerie and her Week of Wonders". Just like Richard Blackburn's sinister "Lemora, a Child's Tale of the Supernatural", "Valerie" is a 'coming of age' tale told through a monstrous metaphor: vampires, who prey on the young to drain their innocence. Despite similarities theme-wise, these two films are quite different, and "Valerie" is clearly superior - a film that will definitely haunt you for life, with images so shocking today as they were back in 70's when it was released. It is 'horror' of rare ethereal beauty and poetry, and definitely one of it's kind - perfectly capturing the fear, the curiosity and the pleasure of a little girl's sexual awakening. Jaroslava Schallerová is spellbinding as the title character - a combination of Lewis Caroll's Alice and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, and manages to convey both the purity and the sensuality that the role requires. Kudos for her doing such 'depraved' scenes involving incest and lesbianism, that are surely unthinkable today. Helena Anýzová also gives a harrowing performance in the role of the grandmother, and her gradual transition from repressed Catholic old lady to a seductive, sex-crazed vampire is exquisite. Last but not least, Jires' excellent direction and Jan Curik's lush cinematography that highlights the film's "fever dream" tone help create this brilliant work of art that captures the essence of the ethereal and lyricism on celluloid unlike any other.