Jaroslava Schallerová emerges almost entirely from darkness in this extraordinary black-and-white portrait associated with VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS (1970), her enormous eyes becoming the emotional center of one of the most haunting images connected with the Czech New Wave classic. With her mouth completely concealed behind dark fabric and her beautifully arranged hair cascading across the composition, Schallerová is reduced to little more than eyes, hair and illuminated skin—a mysterious portrait that seems to reveal Valerie while simultaneously hiding her from us.

The styling is magnificent.

Her bangs perfectly frame the eyes.

A long sweep of hair descends across the darkness.

Her mouth disappears.

And suddenly the eyes have to tell us everything.

A Face Inside Valerie’s Dream World

Directed by Jaromil Jireš, VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS (1970) remains one of the most visually distinctive works associated with the Czechoslovak New Wave.

Adapted from the novel by Vítězslav Nezval, the film follows Valerie through an extraordinary world in which fairy-tale imagery, vampires, religion, sexuality, transformation and supernatural menace continually blur the boundary between reality and dream.

This portrait contains none of that elaborate imagery.

And somehow—

it still feels completely at home within Valerie’s world.

There is no recognizable location.

No supporting character.

No elaborate costume to study.

No obvious narrative.

Instead, virtually everything has been removed.

Schallerová looks directly toward us from a field of black.

The dark fabric rises across the lower portion of her face until her mouth is completely hidden.

That single decision transforms the portrait.

Normally the mouth gives us an immediate emotional clue.

A smile invites us closer.

Parted lips might suggest surprise.

Tension can indicate fear.

Here—

we get nothing.

So we return to the eyes.

They are enormous.

Direct.

Curious.

Perhaps apprehensive.

But never completely readable.

And that uncertainty is exactly what makes the portrait so compelling.

Her hair performs an equally important visual function.

The heavy bangs form a beautifully controlled frame above the eyes, while the longer strands descend over the dark fabric and remain visible only because their texture catches the light.

Against so much black, every strand becomes graphic.

Hair becomes line.

Skin becomes light.

The eyes become the story.

That is remarkable photographic economy.

The image also creates an intriguing contradiction for the collector.

Schallerová appears extraordinarily close to us.

This is an intimate portrait.

Yet psychologically, she remains unreachable.

We can see her eyes with extraordinary clarity while much of the person behind them remains literally concealed.

That tension mirrors something essential about VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS itself.

The film continually presents images that seem understandable at first glance, only to become stranger when examined more closely.

Innocence and menace coexist.

Beauty and unease coexist.

Reality and fantasy refuse to remain separated.

This portrait operates similarly.

At first—

a beautiful young face.

Then we notice the missing mouth.

The surrounding darkness.

The almost disembodied eyes.

And the photograph becomes something else.

Not frightening.

Unsettling.

There is an important difference.

For collectors of European cult cinema, this is also precisely the kind of photograph that expands the visual history of a film beyond conventional scene stills.

It does not tell us what happens in VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS.

It tells us what the film feels like.

That is the collector WHY.

A production still can document a scene.

A character photograph can document Valerie.

But this portrait captures something much harder to preserve:

the mystery surrounding her.

And because the composition is so simple, nothing dilutes that effect.

Eyes.

Hair.

Darkness.

That is virtually all the photographer gives us.

It is enough.

In fact, anything more might weaken it.

Preserved within the KissMeMonster photographic archive, this exceptional black-and-white portrait has been carefully restored to retain the delicate tonal detail of Jaroslava Schallerová’s illuminated features, the extraordinary texture and flowing lines of her hair, the deep surrounding blacks and the penetrating clarity of the eyes that dominate this haunting composition—preserving a remarkable image associated with the dreamlike world of VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS.