Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

A person dressed in a black hooded cloak, black face mask, white gloves, and large ring, with a lit candle and glass of red liquid in the foreground, and a decorative white bird on a wall in the background.

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, a teenage girl living with her grandmother, is blossoming into womanhood, but that transformation proves secondary to the effects she experiences when she puts on a pair of magic earrings, which make her see the world around her in a different light. Valerie attempts to discern reality from fantasy as she encounters lecherous priest Gracian, a vampire-like stranger, and otherworldly carnival folk.

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.

Part of our "Nosferatu Afterlives" series. Courtesy of Janus Films. In Czech with English subtitles.