Jaroslava Schallerová as Valerie peers out from enveloping blackness in this haunting black-and-white portrait associated with Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970), her large expressive eyes, softly framed face and flowing dark hair becoming almost the only visible elements of the composition. The extraordinary use of negative space gives the image a dreamlike, mysterious quality perfectly aligned with one of the most celebrated works of the Czechoslovak New Wave.

The photograph achieves its effect through remarkable visual restraint. Schallerová’s face is partially concealed by a sweeping field of dark fabric or shadow, leaving only her eyes, nose and portions of her hair exposed. Rather than depending on elaborate scenery or costume, the portrait concentrates entirely on Valerie’s gaze, creating an image that feels suspended somewhere between waking reality and a private dream.

Directed by Jaromil Jireš, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders follows Valerie through a constantly shifting world of fairy-tale imagery, supernatural encounters, vampires, religious symbolism and mysterious transformations. The film abandons conventional narrative logic in favor of an elliptical dream structure in which characters and identities seem capable of changing from one moment to the next.

Released in 1970, the Czechoslovak production became one of the most distinctive late works associated with the Czech New Wave. Its visual language combines Gothic fantasy, folklore, surrealism and poetic imagery, creating a cinematic world that remains difficult to categorize and immediately recognizable more than half a century after its release.

Schallerová’s performance is central to that atmosphere. As Valerie, she frequently serves as the quiet observer of the strange figures and inexplicable events surrounding her. This portrait intensifies that quality by isolating her eyes within darkness, suggesting curiosity, uncertainty and watchfulness without providing any clear explanation of what she may be seeing.

The film was adapted from the novel by Vítězslav Nezval, with a screenplay by Jaromil Jireš and Ester Krumbachová. Its striking visual identity was shaped by cinematographer Jan Čuřík, while Luboš Fišer’s celebrated score contributes significantly to the film’s hypnotic, fairy-tale atmosphere.

The monochrome presentation gives this particular image a visual character distinct from the film’s celebrated color cinematography. Deep blacks surround Schallerová’s pale face while her hair creates a soft transition between light and darkness, producing an almost graphic composition built from eyes, hair, shadow and negative space.

Carefully restored from archival source material and professionally lab-developed, this museum-quality photograph is presented uncropped, preserving the complete image area contained in the archival source. Meticulous restoration recovers facial clarity, hair detail, tonal separation, deep blacks and photographic integrity while retaining the mysterious character of the original black-and-white image.

For collectors of Jaroslava Schallerová and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, this is an exceptionally evocative piece of Czech New Wave imagery—a haunting portrait in which Schallerová’s penetrating eyes, flowing hair, partially concealed face and near-total surrounding darkness capture the film’s dreamlike fusion of Gothic fantasy and surrealism, making it especially desirable for collectors of Czechoslovak cinema, European cult film, surrealist photography and classic art-house horror.