Daisies [1966]
Director Vera Chytilova and her film Daisies is probably the best known example of the movement that came to be remembered as Czech New Wave even if someone like Milos Forman probably is the best known director who came to be a part of the movement (even if his best known films are from a very different time and place). Daisies is a fun and easy-going experimental film which follows two odd females and their "spoiled" lifestyles which consist of sunbathing, eating dinners payed by elderly men and causing mischief to their surroundings.
It's hard to say how I personally feel about this film. I find it captivating, despite it saying so little and I have no problem with the more experimental nature of the film, something I thought would be an issue during the films first ten minutes but I quickly came to appreciate the quirky and unexplained nature of the two leads aswell as the clever and vivid editing and the fascinating use of color and their juxtapositioning. Seeing pictures of rows of butterflies flash along the screen as one of the girls' lovers proclaim his love for her "Life without you is miserable!" as a rapid piano is climbing up and down in the background is mesmerizing, entrancing and it's difficult to not get sucked in.
I can keep going about the films strong suites, the sets are done in a colorful and exciting fashion, especially the two girls' little room, but also the incoherent dialogue ("Your legs are crooked", "Don't you know that's just what I based my personality on?") and the monotone, otherwordly feel of the two leads' acting, delivering lines as if they were talking to kids below three on Disney Channel. All of these things add up to a very strong film but what will turn people of from Daisies is the experimental nature. This isn't weird in the sense that a David Lynch film is weird and it isn't avant-garde the way Bela Tarr or Tarkovsky might be considered to be. There's no nightmarish atmosphere that it atleast could be compared to but it just is an odd film that says a lot of things about things that I can't quite comprehend. The film was of course banned in Czechoslovakia back in the days but for "wanton" and not for its criticism's of society (that atleast I interpreted the lifestyles and the motives of the two leads as). It's hard to speak clearly on what deeper themes there is to Daisies and I can't quite express a strong opinion or personal interpretation of this film with only one vieweing in the trunk but I definitely believe that the two girls are intended to work as a criticism against the government or even the burgoise if one would be so inclined (the two girls' ignorance and their careless lifestyles, living without a personal care and always devouring food on someone else's expense), but again these are just brief thoughts that popped into my head barely thirty minutes after finishing up the film.
Daisies definitely made me curious for more of Chytilova's works and it saddens me that I missed the big retrospect that they did on her films earlier this Autumn at the film house here in Stockholm since I believe that finding more of her works outside of Daisies might be hard online. Daisies is a fascinating piece of cinema that takes some patience and understanding from the viewer. It isn't a demanding film but I'd classify it as a sort of "out there"- kind of film. If one can stand the lack of plot then I believe Daisies can easily be enjoyed as a feel good film about two irresponsible girls who go where life takes them and do what they enjoy, whether that is ruining a dinner party or bathing in milk is up to them.
Daisies [1966]
dir. V. Chytilova
Anton Öberg Sysojev
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