‘Valerie and Her Week of Wonders’ or — What if Jacques Rivette directed ‘Salem’s Lot’?

I was expecting the unexpected with Jaromil Jires’ ‘Valerie and Her Week of Wonders’ (1970), possibly something along the lines of a Czech New Wave version of Angela Carter’s ‘The Company of Wolves’ as we follow a young girl discovering her sexuality replete with political overtones and an avant-garde visual style. And that’s certainly all there but I was NOT expecting to be moved to tears by the end or that it was actually a vampire movie. Imagine ‘Salem’s Lot’ (1979) directed by Jacques Rivette, which is a surprisingly accurate description even if I say so myself.

So what’s it about? Valerie is a young girl who lives with her grandmother and this is the week her body is becoming that of a woman’s. However, with this blossoming, as we all know, comes dangers and it’s not long before a young man has stolen Valerie’s earrings. This sets Valerie off on a sort of sexual fairy tale/pilgrim’s progress/inward journey as she encounters various characters — sexually repressed relatives, actors, hypocritical priests, vampires — all of whom seem to represent part of Valerie herself and, possibly, the ambiguous duality and contradictions of the self. So sure, the young thief Orlik might be a suitor or maybe her brother or even Death but he is also, very much, part of Valerie herself so even though there are plenty of Freudian sexual overtones there’s also the heavy presence of the Jungian shadowself lurking here. Will Valerie be able to integrate herself and self-actualise before the vampires get her? Watch ‘Valerie and Her Week of Wonders’ and find out!

All this might sound uber esoteric and obscure, and you’ve got all that in spades here so cerebral aesthetes will have no shortage of juicy fodder, but what is most surprising is how, relatively, straight forward and accessible it all is, despite the incessant and ecstatically overwhelming invention. At times I was almost amazed that Disney hasn’t remade this; seriously, it would be a good fit for them — young girl, lovely music, a fantastical setting etc. It all has a similar dreamlike logic and flow that Cocteau’s films have and, like Cocteau, creates its fantastical world not so much through special effects but editing, design, make-up and a collision of ideas, concepts and images. Combine that with a heart-moving soundtrack and the artistic achievement here is staggering.

Although this is still, essentially, a horror movie and one that is filmed with a truly incredible eye, at times feeling as if Stanley Kubrick had directed a Giallo except ‘Valerie and Her Week of Wonders’ gets sexuality better than Kubrick ever did (unlike ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ this film feels like the work of an actual grown-up). Indeed the comparisons to other filmmakers, something I try not to do when talking about a movie, just kept on coming with the movie reminding me of everything from Jodorowsky to Murnau, Robbe-Grillet to Jacques Demy (although this film has a better story and deeper emotional engagement that Demy’s work), Bergman to Bava and even had me thinking, at one point, that this is what ‘Fantasia’ would be like if it was directed by Sergio Leone (I think it was the use of music combined with the editing). But it is the way ‘Valerie’ captures the sensation of how thought works that really impresses, of how we piece together fragments of perception and existence to give the illusion of a whole and all the infinite slippages glimpsed between. It’s the human condition and our mortality being fought over here and this film gets the existential just right.

There was a point early on, and I think the film deliberately prods this inclination in the viewer, where I thought “How is this all going to end? Will it all mean something?” The good news is it does, it most absolutely means something, if not everything. The ending totally sideswiped me with its emotion and beauty, capturing and expressing a feeling and clarity of grace that surpasses what Malick was going for in ‘The Tree of Life’. And all this from a vampire movie?

This might be a film about un-dead vampires but, exactly like Rivette’s ‘Celine and Julie Go Boating’ (1974), it is a movie about life and animation. ‘Valerie and Her Week of Wonders’ is fiercely entertaining, visually and sonically ravishing and has that feeling of congregational inclusion at the climax that reminded me, for some unfathomable reason, of Leo McCarey’s finest work, which could explain my tears at the end. I adored this movie and it might just be the finest vampire film ever made.