Perhaps the most gratifying part of writing this column is the element of surprise. When I finish one column, I have little or no idea what the subject of the next installment will be; sometimes a long-forgotten title will pop into my head, other times I’ll happen to read an article about an interesting film—who knows? Technology has revolutionized the possibility for limitless discovery and maybe that’s why the internet (or Turner Classic Movies) is becoming the prime filmgoing experience for more and more people.
Recently many purveyors of the new folk music movement have championed the 1970 Czech film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders as a seminal touchstone to its ever-expanding fanbase. Nearly next to impossible to view in any format for decades, lo and behold, one can now see this indescribable masterpiece in a beautiful pristine copy at the touch of a fingertip.
Based on a 1935 novel by surrealist Czech writer Viteslav Nezval (which subsequently got him in trouble with the surrealists—always a good sign!), directed by Jaromil Jires (The Joke), Valerie is a proto-hippie masala of vampirism, folklore, religious allegory, and political lineage, all underscored by a magnificent soft-psych soundtrack by Jan Klusak. The story involves the dreamlike week-long journey of 14-year-old Valerie (the luminous Jaroslava Schallerova) as she undertakes the crossover from childhood to puberty, confronting all the haphazard characters, situations, mystery, and magic everyone must encounter during their initiation into the world of adults.
Rarely have I seen a film as sensuous as this one—Sergei Paradjanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors comes to mind, but not much else. Watching it is akin to sitting beside a wooded stream on a beautiful summer day—you just don’t want to be anywhere else! Jires’ playful suggestion of gothic intrigue (numerous catacombs and folkloric mythos) never betrays the overriding sense of wonderment and magic that is at the heart of the story and at the heart of initiation itself. He presents the film’s universe in a way that keeps beckoning the viewer onward—there’s always a new adventure around the corner, always luring you deeper into the dream of dreams.
Eastern European cinema is (and perhaps always will be) an underdiscovered treasure trove of dauntingly expansive creativity. Not long after the release of this film, the Czech New Wave was crushed by the iron fist of Mother Russia. But Jires dutifully remained in his homeland, relegated to the kind of monochromatic life befell millions of artists and poets within totalitarian regimes. Yet for one brief week, there will always be Valerie.

Watch Valerie and Her Week of Wonders online at www.youtube.com.