Valerie and Her Week of Wonders : Menstruation and ageing

Menstruation and ageing

This was a theme throughout the film linked, of course, to sexuality. I know there's lots that doesn't make logical sense and a wealth of images that overwhelmed me, but I wondered why the preoccupation with ageing and death. Any ideas?

Fatima had a fetish for a wiggle in her scoot

Re: Menstruation and ageing

Cause it's scary

Re: Menstruation and ageing

Since the film is viewed through the eyes of Valerie, I think it is supposed to reflect how the woeful attitudes of those around her in response to ageing cause her to regard it as something monstrous and horrific, and consequently view the old people in her life as villainous (presupposing that the film is a dream/fantasy). Although this idea could also be reversed to mean that old age is a punishment cast on people for their vanity and immorality (the same way villains in fairytales are cursed with ugliness), as Weasel and Valerie's grandmother end up having to rely on Valerie for their youth after they sacrifice her. For the most part though, Valerie's mistrust of the older characters probably stems from her understanding that as people age, their priorities shift from giving into their pleasures and enjoying life to adopting moralistic prejudices, religious guilt/fears, and valuing grim duty above all else. When her real mother and father are revealed at the end as being younger and attractive, Valerie is perhaps reconciling her views toward adulthood as she herself matures and comes to realize that they did have her best interests in mind, despite their faults.

I'm not sure if the film really deals much with the subject of death, as all of the characters who die in the film reappear at the end. I would say it marks a period of transformation, or of escaping a role or predicament that a character finds themselves in (a sort of waking up from the nightmare). Unless the vampirism as a type of 'waking death' is supposed to reflect the immature perception of death as a perpetual darkness rather than merely the ceasing of life.

Re: Menstruation and ageing

Thanks for your reply. I'd need to watch the film again in order to have an adequate rejoinder to your well thought out post.

Although this idea could also be reversed to mean that old age is a punishment cast on people for their vanity and immorality (the same way villains in fairytales are cursed with ugliness) ... When her real mother and father are revealed at the end as being younger and attractive, Valerie is perhaps reconciling her views toward adulthood as she herself matures and comes to realize that they did have her best interests in mind, despite their faults.
I like this idea particularly.

I was thinking of death in many ways and not just as the end to corporeal life. When I posted I had in mind death linked to the first blood of menstruation but as it was a while ago I forget why the link or what more I had in mind.

Keep silent unless what you are going to say is more important than silence.

Re: Menstruation and ageing

You're welcome. It also took me a couple of views and a more surrealist reading of the film to make any sense out of most of it.

Perhaps your association of Valerie's menstruation with death was in the death of innocence. Many of the images used to symbolize this are very austere and have a touch of violence (blood droplets on the daisy, wine spilled on a white tablecloth, the hand leaving an ineffacable mark on the virgin's breast, a pomegranate being cut), so it's not unlikely that Valerie saw sexual maturation as the irrevocable loss of her childhood rather than merely another stage in her development. Blood loss also occurs throughout the film usually in the form of sacrifice (Valerie and others being fed upon for the vampires' youth, Valerie later willfully giving her blood to save Weasel), and when Valerie watches Hedvika and the farmer having sex on their wedding night, it is mentioned that there is 'not a drop of blood'. Hedvika's gloomy disposition during the proceedings and her imitation of the pose of Christ indicate that she sees the marriage as a sacrifice for security, and perhaps the fact that she isn't a virgin explains why she has no ideals about marriage, as she is well aware of what she is giving up. Valerie already says 'Poor Hedvika' as she watches from the window at the start of the film, so we see that she too understands the sacrificial element, and probably sees her own maturation as the inevitable path toward the same future.

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