chiramku: Jaromil Jires - Valerie a týden divu / Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

Jaromil Jires - Valerie a týden divu / Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066516/

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. This dreamlike fairytale captures the coming-of-age of a young Czechoslovakian girl. After receiving a pair of earrings, strange things begin to happen to Valerie. As her burgeoning sexuality sparks even more haunting escapades, Valerie must contend with an explosively surreal world that challenges and inspires her.

"Valerie and Her Week of Wonders" is a wonderfully surreal and hallucinatory horror/fantasy tale made by Jaromil Jires.This poetic film looks like a curious mixture of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Nosferatu".The pubescent Valerie is awakened one day by a pasty-faced,Nosferatu-like vampire who steals her earrings(which,we later learn,are imbued with magical powers).She pursues him,but he manages to vanish into a crowd.She spots the vampire again later, feebly disguised behind a mouse-head mask,and points him out to her(alarmingly pale)grandmother.As it turns out,the earring thief has vampirized Valerie's grannie,along with much of the town,and furthermore has set up shop in the dark,cobwebby basement of Valerie's house!Matters aren't helped by the presence of a lecherous priest with an eye for Valerie,but things really come to a head when Val's young, pretty 'aunt' moves in and tries to take Valerie out of the picture.The aunt is in fact Val's vampirized grandmother looking to further the head vamp's nefarious aims.Luckily Valerie's one true love,a dashing young man,is there to help her escape her grandmother's clutches and defeat the vampires, which inspires a mass celebration among the townspeople,ending with them all surrounding Valerie as she climbs into an outdoor bed and goes to sleep.The film itself is loaded with incredibly dreamy atmosphere as it mixes perfectly fantasy with reality.The main actress Jaroslava Schallerova is stunningly beautiful.A must-see for fans of poetic horror. IMDB comment.