Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

[lordofdance]

An often perplexing, occasionally beautiful, nightmare of a movie, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is hard to forget after seeing it. There are some really creepy and haunting moments, and probably just as many silly ones, so I had a hard time deciding if I should be annoyed or entranced.

The story, as much as I could make sense of it, involves a girl with magical earrings who lives with her grandmother. During the movie, she comes into conflict with a pedophiliac priest and a vampire (called "The Weasel") who wants to steal her house and her life energy. Or something like that. I'll probably have to watch this again to fully understand what's going on because everything about is so dreamlike and strange. It comes across as a warped children's fantasy with adult themes, and there's always a sense of doom throughout.

The striking images in Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is my primary reason for giving it a positive rating. Like I said, there are some really lovely scenes in this movie, as well as some eerie ones, that stayed with me after the movie ended. As the for the movie as a whole, though, it kind of left me cold. I pretty much either felt boredom or fascination as I watched it, so I can't really call it a great movie. It's an interesting one, but difficult to connect with. I think it's the first Czech movie I've seen.

This and the movie Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural would probably make a good double feature.

*** out of *****


Jaroslava Schallerová, who plays Valerie.