Surreal dream-like tale that combines several themes into one fantastical world.
A thief awakens 13-year-old Valerie, taking earrings left to her by her mother. By morning, the earrings have been returned, Valerie's first period has begun, and a troupe and a missionary have arrived in her 19th-century town. The thief is Orick; he reports to a cloaked constable who may also be the missionary. Attention to sexuality is everywhere: Valerie's grandmother's puritanical nature, the missionary's sermon to the town's virgins, the parish priest's attempt to seduce Valerie, and lusty adults at play. Valerie's nascent sexuality puts her in great danger. Can she navigate the passage from innocence to experience, a route teaming with vampires, a murderer, and an obscure family tree?—<[email protected]>
Valerie [Jaroslava Schallerová] has just come of age with her first bleeding. Babischka [Helena Anyzová] saysthat it's time to put away her magic earrings and attend to themissionaries who are coming to town. Valerie, however, is more interestedin the performers who have arrived for Hedvica's wedding. As thecelebrators pass below her dining room window, Valerie sees a "monster," amasked man whose face changes from human to a nosferatu-like vampire. EvenBabischka pales when she sets eyes on him.
Now Valerie begins to see the vampire everywhere. He is the Bishop,he is the Constable, he is her boyfriend Orlik's guardian, he is theWeasel, he is Babischka's lover Richard. Babischka wishes to be youngagain so that Richard will find her beautiful, so she signs away her house(Valerie's inheritance) in return for a drink of Hedvica's blood on herwedding night. Babischka then shows up as Valerie's second cousin Elsa,young, beautiful, and vampire. When Valerie learns that the Vampire isdying and must have blood, she steals a chicken and feeds him the bloodoff her lips.
A visiting priest, another of Babischka's lovers, tellsValerie that her father was also Orlik's father, which greatly disturbsValerie to find that she and Orlik are brother and sister, but she is moredisturbed when the priest attempts to seduce her, so upset in fact thatshe kills herself with her magic earrings. The priest then kills himselfbut comes back to life. The priest convinces the town that Valeriebewitched him, so the townsfolk tie Valerie to a stake and set her onfire, but her magic earrings save her.
Suddenly, Babischka is back. She reveals to Valerie a story about howher lover Richard had two children with Valerie's mother (of which Valerieis one, of course) just as a carriage drives up and Valerie's parents getout. A hunter kills a weasel which has been eating the chickens, and muchmerriment ensues as the whole town turns up to celebrate. The story endswith Valerie asleep in a bed in the middle of the forest. [Synopsis by bj_kuehl]
