A surrealist fairy tale involving vampires, lecherous priests, witch-burning, and budding teenage sexuality, Jaromil Jires' 1970 film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders could scarcely have been more tailor-made to become a cult favorite. Considered a classic of Czech New Wave cinema, the film's reputation has also benefited greatly from Lubos Fiser's original film score. As with the soundtrack to the 1973 version of The Wicker Man, Fiser's enchanting score has itself become an important underground touchstone, whose echoes have been heard in the work of Broadcast, Tim Burton, and all across the psych-folk terrain.
Now, as a tribute to the film and its enduring appeal, a collective calling themselves the Valerie Project have created and performed an alternate soundtrack to accompany 35-mm projections of Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. Led by Greg Weeks of Espers, the Project unites an impressive ensemble of Philadelphia-based musicians that includes several members of Espers, Tara Burke of Fursaxa, and electronicist Charles Cohen. One of the group's stated goals is reframe the film to help viewers advance new interpretations of this complex work. Whether or not they've succeeded in that regard is likely open to debate, but nevertheless their dense, vibrant new score can certainly be savored as an engaging and imaginative song cycle in its own right.
Even after multiple viewings, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders can remain a bewildering spectacle, and its dream-like plot defies easy synopsis. Long story short: a young girl hits puberty, gets herself a pair of magic earrings, and all hell breaks loose as she soon discovers that seemingly everyone she encounters is a shape-shifting blood relative, a lascivious clergyman, and/or a vampire.
In fact, the film is filled with so many odd plot twists and bizarre images that it effectively becomes a blank slate for its composers, as virtually any score that is even remotely mystical or enchanted is going to sound more or less appropriate. So it is interesting to note that the Valerie Project have here neither done a faithful recreation of Fiser's original score, nor have they necessarily taken the soundtrack in any radical new directions. Instead, the music here can almost be considered as a fantasia on the themes introduced by Fiser, and is best appreciated as a supplement to the original score rather than as a replacement.
In the original score, Fiser and collaborator Jan Klusak used a gauzy array of woodwinds, harpsichord, and a children's chorus to craft a soundtrack that elevated the film's off-kilter balance and sense of anti-authoritarian whimsy. For their part, the Valerie Project have incorporated certain elements of Fiser's design-- a lyrical flute passage here, some disembodied voices there--but with the aid of Weeks' acid guitar leads and a forceful string section they have instead captured more of the film's underlying melancholy and brooding aura of loss.
Despite my best efforts, and the Valerie Project's descriptive song titles, I had very little luck in synchronizing their soundtrack with a DVD of the film in any truly precise or meaningful way. (Although there does seem to be a portentous twinkle of chimes whenever those magical earrings appear onscreen .) That said, the group do a fine job of conveying the general mood and atmosphere of the film's action through the disorienting psychedelic swirl of "Grandmother" or with the robust strings of "Burned at the Stake", and once you have seen the movie it becomes easy to discern which scenes each track is designed to evoke. As with her Fursaxa work, the wordless vocals of Tara Burke are a sumptuous treat throughout, and the album's strongest pieces such as "Eagle's Theme" or "The Feast" match or better the transporting splendor of anything yet created by Espers.
Weeks has stated that he feels Valerie and Her Week of Wonders projects a political or cultural message that remains relevant today through its themes of lost innocence and responsible pastoral living. And though the film is certainly abstract enough to be open to a variety of interpretations, this feels to me like a bit of a stretch. The film's sexual politics might seem rather problematic to today's audiences, and it certainly doesn't paint a very rosy picture of pastoral life, especially if you don't like getting chomped by vampire grannies. There is little doubt, however, that the Valerie Project's passion for Jires' film and Fiser's soundtrack has taken them well beyond anywhere they might otherwise have gone, and with this album it is an enjoyable privilege to join in their travels.
