Jaromil Jireš

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

A girl on the verge of womanhood finds herself in a sensual fantasyland of vampires, witchcraft, and other threats in this eerie and mystical movie daydream. 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.

Film Info

  • Czechoslovakia
  • 1970
  • 76 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.37:1
  • Czech
  • Spine #761

Special Features

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Three early shorts by director Jaromil Jireš: Uncle (1959), Footprints (1960), and The Hall of Lost Footsteps (1960)
  • New interview with Czechoslovak film scholar Peter Hames
  • Interviews from 2006 with actors Jaroslava Schallerová and Jan Klusák
  • Alternate 2007 psych-folk soundtrack to the film by the Valerie Project, with a new video piece on the music’s origins
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Jana Prikryl

    New cover based on an original poster by Dot Graphics

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Three early shorts by director Jaromil Jireš: Uncle (1959), Footprints (1960), and The Hall of Lost Footsteps (1960)
  • New interview with Czechoslovak film scholar Peter Hames
  • Interviews from 2006 with actors Jaroslava Schallerová and Jan Klusák
  • Alternate 2007 psych-folk soundtrack to the film by the Valerie Project, with a new video piece on the music’s origins
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Jana Prikryl

    New cover based on an original poster by Dot Graphics
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Cast
Jaroslava Schallerová
Valerie
Helena Anyžová
Elsa/Grandmother/Mother
Petr Kopriva
Eaglet
Jirí Prýmek
Polecat
Jan Klusák
Gracián
Libuše Komancová
Servant girl/Novice
Karel Engel
Ondrej the Coachman
Alena Stojáková
Hedvika
Otto Hradecký
Landowner
Martin Wielgus
Young father
Jirina Machalická
Flower girl
Michaela Klocová
Young girl
Zdenka Kovárová
Young girl
Bedriška Chalupská
Young girl
Robert Nezval
Musician
Credits
Director
Jaromil Jireš
Produced by
Jirí Becka
Based on the novel by
Vítězslav Nezval
Screenplay
Ester Krumbachová
Screenplay
Jaromil Jireš
Dialogue
Jirí Musil
Cinematography
Jan Curík
Edited by
Josef Valušiak
Production design
Ester Krumbachová
Art director
Jan Oliva
Costume design
Eva Lackingerová
Music
Luboš Fišer
Conductor
František Belfín
Makeup
Ladislav Bacílek
Sound
Emil Poledník
Set designer
Josef Calta
Props
Vera Flašarová
Camera operator
Oldrich Hubácek
Props
Stépánka Koloušková

Current

Introducing Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Introducing Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Beautiful and strange from beginning to end, Jaromil Jireš’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a film like no other. It’s fairy tale, horror movie, and coming-of-age story all at once, like Alice in Wonderland with medieval and religious overto…
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders: Grandmother,  What Big Fangs You Have!
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders: Grandmother, What Big Fangs You Have!

This work of hallucinatory lyricism was one of the final and freest expressions of the rule-flouting New Wave movement in Czechoslovakia.


By Jana Prikryl

Happily Ever After?
Happily Ever After?
The glittering surfaces of classic fairy tales often mask undercurrents of emotional torment, spiritual foreboding, and moral transgression. This week, our latest series on the Criterion Channel, Happily Ever After?, showcases the deviant forces lurk…