Daisies (1966)

Film: Daisies

Director: Věra Chytilová

Country: Czech Republic

Released: December 1966

Runtime: 76 minutes

Genre: Surrealism

Studio: Ustřední Půjčovna Filmů

Influenced: Juraj Jakubisko, Lindsay Anderson, Milan Kundera, Sally Potter, Emir Kusturica, Julie Taymor

The Czech New Wave refers to the group of Czechoslovakian filmmakers who emerged in the 1960s, many of whom got their grounding in the prestigious FAMU film school, located in Prague. Some of the prominent directors in this scene included Miloš Forman, who directed Black Peter (1964) and The Firemen's Ball (1967), Věra Chytilová and Jiří Menzel, whose film Closely Watched Trains (1966) won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The films were often abstract and radical in style, touching on themes which had to be avoided by earlier filmmakers in Communist countries owing to objections from the censors. Daisies was Chytilová's second feature film, and a radical departure in terms of style, mixing black & white and colour footage and an experimental approach to editing.

The movie's opening credits are a work of art in themself, presenting images of 20th century war interspersed with footage of a flywheel turning, underscoring at the outset the film's surreal, fragmented structure and vibrant visual style. With the assistance of leading Czech cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, Chytilová was at the cutting-edge of what could be captured on film. Both leading actresses (Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová) who play the two Maries were non-professionals, but this is no neorealist film, if anything it's hyperreal. There are apparent reference points, such as the scene early in the film in what seems to be the Garden of Eden, but often it's hard for the audience to anchor itself into any understanding of plot. The two Maries decide to start a series of pranks and acts of rebellion, from stealing and destroying food to flirting with men and rejecting their advances. Throughout the film, they continually break social norms, challenging the traditional roles of women and the expectations placed upon them.

Chytilová wrote the script along side Ester Krumbachová with the intent of satirising the rigid structures of Communism, as well as polite bourgeois society, but the story mainly consists of two girls having an enormous amount of fun and turning the tables on men. One of the film's most powerful scenes is a sequence in which the Maries attend a lavish banquet hosted by a group of old fellows. As they eat and drink to excess, the Maries begin to mock the men and their pretensions, causing chaos and destruction. This scene is notable for its surrealist imagery, including floating food and cutlery, and its satirical critique of bourgeois excess. Chytilová herself described the film as "a philosophical essay in the form of a farce", and it does cleverly lace political theory with wonderful moments of slapstick. On a more prosaic level, the film features a lot of food, most notably in the memorable scene where the two Maries use scissors to cut up various phallically-shaped food items, taking great pleasure in eating them.

There's such an enormous vitality and vigour to the film, including incredible moments of cinematic psychedelia, such as the speeded-up and colour treated footage of a train journey. The film's music and sound design is as radical and abstract as the images, interlacing with the visuals to create distinct moods but constructed in the form of a collage in the same way as the film itself. Chytilová uses a range of innovative techniques, such as jump cuts, split screens and experimental editing techniques, to create a sense of disorientation and fragmentation. This visual style complements the film's themes of rebellion and non-conformity, highlighting the refusal of the Maries to be constrained by societal norms. The film's rejection of traditional narrative structures and its celebration of anarchic behaviour inspired a new wave of feminist and avant-garde cinema in Europe and beyond.