Message Boards

I agree Zoe, and maybe I wasn't clear on that point. There might be some slight reason to read "the happy story" as a wish-fulfillment version of what "really" happened to Valerie -- but no more reason than to accept both stories/sequences as equally real (or unreal).

For one thing, several characters in the film seem to die only to go on living one way or another. Gracian and Valerie in "the scary story", Grandmother and the Weasel after that. Also, we need that last day to add up to a week.

Hey, that suggests something to me...

What if the film's final day, "the happy story" is Sunday -- the last day of the week? That makes it the Lord's day, right? What if the "Lord" in question isn't the Christian God, but rather some kind of pagan/animist hippie-type spiritual thing? The rest of the film is essentially a procession of Christian Sabbaths, ending with the awful and peculiarly Christian atrocity of witch-burning.

This last day could then be a sort of "holy" respite from all that.

Oh, kinda skipped the "sleeping things over" bit. Has nothing to do with the film, but the older I've gotten, the more sense this makes to me. When I was young, I'd get wrapped up in my emotions and immediate situation, and feel that now was the only moment. I couldn't see or even imagine any way out.

At this point, when I get myself into some kind of bad place, mentally, I'm more inclined to assume my perspective is distorted, and that I'll have a better angle on things after some sleep. Usually works. The stuff that continues to haunt is the stuff I really need to be concerned about, and the rest is just noise. Makes life seem a lot more manageable.

Like Neitzche's idea, but the early hours are GREAT for writing.

Welcome to the club Conedust!

---

Somebody here has been drinking and I'm sad to say it ain't me - Allan Francis Doyle

---

A couple more thoughts on escape, water imagery and the role of the flower girl.

***** ***** ***** *****


One of my favorite shots in the film comes near the end of the "scary story", when Valerie takes the chicken she has stolen to the Reverend in order to save him (this is just after she has rescued seemingly dead Gracian, and received Orlik's rejection letter from the flower girl).

After the Reverend is re-empowered and again becomes evil, attempting to sexually assault Valerie, she puts Orlik's magical pearl in her mouth. We hear the familiar twinkling sound (associated both with the earrings and the pearl), and in a slow-motion low angle shot -- prone Rev's POV -- we see Valerie raise her arm to catch at a cobweb spun from the ceiling as she twists and drifts down out of frame. As she disappears, the Rev's arms rise into view as if to catch her, but too late: they hold only the space she has vacated. So nice.

After that marvelous image, the Rev goes to where Valerie has fallen and looks down. Cut to a shot of joyful Valerie swimming in the sunlit, flower-strewn courtyard fountain of her house (a shot repeated from earlier in the film). It seems to me that this vision of Valerie in the water represents her escape from the Reverend via "magical" unconsciousness. It's sort of her "safe place": in the water, in sunlight, happy.

This made me wonder about other uses of water as rescue in the film, and other ways her "escape" is visualized.

The first time this image of Valerie in the courtyard fountain is seen, it follows her first encounter with the "monster" (later identified as the Reverend, the Weasel, the Constable, etc., and in the film's "happy story", revealed as her father). In this encounter, she follows Orlik outside after he first steals her earrings, but is met by a horrifying, masked creature. She screams, and we briefly cut to an image of Valerie shielding her face from him, seen through the out-of-focus image of the bell of her lantern. Cut immediately to Valerie playing in the fountain. In the subsequent shot, Orlik's hands return the earrings to Valerie as she sits on the edge of the same fountain, but here she is again dressed as we saw her in the greenhouse, and the lighting is again dim.

I think the shot of valerie frolicking in the water functions here as it does during the later scene with the Reverend: not as a representation of an in-timeline event, but as a poetic expression of her (mental?) escape from an intolerable situation.

Valerie first uses Orlik's pearl when the visiting priest attempts to rape her. In this scene, there is no poetic visualization of her escape and no water imagery. She simply falls to the floor wrapped in a lace curtain, as if in a shroud, and is presumed dead.

She uses the pearl only once more in the "scary story": on the flaming pyre, after Orlik has "forsaken" her. Here it merely results in the screen's fading to white, as it does at the film's conclusion.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****


The flower girl is a mysterious character. She shares Valerie's pubescent innocence (the flowers she gives Valerie are notably stained with blood), but her sphinx-like placidity sometimes seems more mocking than friendly. She seems to spy on Valerie as she buys the chicken she will give to the Reverend, and subsequently delivers Orlik's farewell letter. Later, as Valerie burns on the pyre, the girl merely smiles and offers another flower.

Most tellingly, in the "happy story", the flower girl is seen with Orlik, holding hands with and kissing him as Valerie moves through the "burning" orange leaves. In these scenes, even though everybody seems happy, there is a clear sense of distance between Orlik and Valerie. In the end, he seems to be with the flower girl, and not with Valerie. So in a sense, here too he has "forsaken" her, and she goes alone in the film's final scene to the bed that so closely resembles the pyre.


***** ***** ***** ***** *****

This is getting crazy long, I know, but I wanted to note a couple more things about water. Fire threatens Valerie (and fire is traditionally associated with masculinity), while water threatens Orlik (water is traditionally feminine). Orlik is twice tortured in or near water, literally bound to it. And when Valerie is distressed by Orlik's lust, she binds his eyes with a wet rag. While water is safety for Valerie, it is captivity for Orlik. Dunno quite what to make of this.

I could go on (and on), but let's draw the line here...

Damn, this makes me want to watch the movie again immediately. I don't think I've even seen a film with this much in it other than Inland Empire.


"Now with my Mary Forderizer, I throw this switch, and now I'm three!"

I actually don't find the bed at the end to resemble the pyre. It's actually her bed from the white room, in which we see her sleep several times. And she lies in bed in the exact same position as in the beginning (minute 6, right after menstruating on the daisy ).

That water=feminine/fire=masculine thing makes a lot of sense. Also the stuff about mentally rescuing is interesting and rings true.

Everything is of interest, but nothing matters.

I didn't mean that the bed itself (physical object) resembles the pyre, but rather that the construction of the shot does. Valerie in the middle, surrounded by a ring of townspeople, the whole image "ablaze" with red-gold leaves ... fade to white (after burning down).

Ah, gotcha now. They are singing and dancing at the burning, just like at the end. They even play the exact same song! So those two puzzle parts definitely have to be put together.

Everything is of interest, but nothing matters.

Well I'm afraid I didn't write up any comments when I watched this 3-4 weeks ago, and I didn't get around to re-watching it this week as I'd half-intended to, so I can't say much; it's a film that like most surrealist work doesn't leave much besides imagery and feelings in the mind after a certain time. I also don't have time to contribute much to this thread alas as I'll be away for a few days, but some immediate impressions:

*the imagery and the use of color were quite striking, though I don't think the old VHS I saw probably managed to capture more than a fraction of what must look really stunning on film.

*I haven't looked through this whole thread so I don't know if anybody else made this comment, but I for one felt rather creepy throughout, in particular in that I thought Valerie looked a bit older than she was and I got no specific age reference - she struck me as 16-17 and she was incredibly beautiful and when I found out that the actress was 13....like I said, creepy and I won't go any farther than that...

*If Celine and Julie Go Boating is "Alice in Wonderland" for grownups, this is "Alice in Wonderland" + "Dracula" for adolescents

I really liked it a lot and though I had a hard time figuring out what was happening for a while, once I surrendered to the dreaminess (as in a Rivette, Ruiz or Lynch film) the spell took over.

I might rewatch this next week if I have the time and come back here - by which point y'all will have gone away, alas. Oh well, great pick zoe, looks like a great discussion too.


You move like a pregnant yak.

I will also definitely read anything you write here next week, although I think I'm going to stop replying to the thread until I watch it again myself, since even after two viewings I find there are important events in the film that refuse to stay in my head.


"Now with my Mary Forderizer, I throw this switch, and now I'm three!"

I'll be here for whatever you might wanna post, too, OE. This is probably the most fun I've had on a straight-up film thread in a long time.

I can see what you mean about the creep factor. Valerie, the character, is depicted sexually, both in terms of the film's themes and in terms of how the camera views her. She's presented to us as an erotic object. Didn't bother me, but the boundaries are definitely tested.

Woe is me, a bad member of the group.

I shall be receiving this within the next few days (along with the next pick) and will report on them promptly.

Mama's all right. Daddy's all right. They just seem a little weird.

That's pretty much what you said last week on the Glen or Glenda thread.

Everything is of interest, but nothing matters.

Hey to any/all:

Just read this interesting review at Senses of Cinema (http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/07/44/valerie-week-won ders.html). Author David Melville views the film almost entirely in political terms, as a parable for Soviet dominance, with a corrupted older generation sustaining itself by feeding on the youth. (Ref. the Vampire Reverend and grandmother, the exchange of Valerie's birthright for youth, the threat to steal Orlik's heart for eternal life, Hedvika's soul-crushing marriage, use of clocks as symbolic devices, corrupt and secretive contracts, etc.)

Melville also sees Valerie's absent mother and father as representative of the generation of established/older artists exiled from Czechoslovakia under Soviet control. This reading helps illuminate the film's final scenes, a sort of sensual Garden of Eden where art and passion have been returned to their "proper" place in the social scheme.

All of this makes at least as much sense as the more universal themes we've been finding in the film, though I think both layers (and more) are undeniably present.

That historical background puts the film into a nice context. I like the interpretation of the exiled artists returning to the country and thereby freeing everyone. It's a nice statement.

Everything is of interest, but nothing matters.