The weird and occasionally wonderful 1970 movie ‘Valerie & Her Week of Wonders’  is based on a 1935 novella by Czech author Vítězslav Nezval and directed by Jaromil Jireš.

It’s a movie which, alongside cult classics like ‘The Wicker Man’ and ‘Holy Mountain’, is held in high esteem within some quarters of  the New Folk movement. Like those movies, it centres mainly on big issues like sex, death, religion and the corruption of innocence; themes which also loom large in the contaminated folk music of the New Weird America. Continue reading →