75 mins |
Rated
Not Rated
Directed by Vera Chytilová
Starring Ivana Karbanova, Jitka Cerhova, Marie Ceskova, Jirina Myskova, Marcela Brezinová, Julius Albert, Jan Klusák
CHELSEA LATE NIGHTS -
DAISIES
(Vera Chytilová, 1966, 75min)
(Staff Pick: Ali/Veda/Mimi)
Fri, 11/14 @ 10PM
Sat, 11/15 @ 10PM
Sun, 11/16 @ 10:30AM
If the entire world is bad, why shouldn’t we be? Adopting this insolent attitude as their guiding philosophy, a pair of hedonistic young women (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová), both named Marie, embark on a gleefully debauched odyssey of gluttony, giddy destruction, and antipatriarchal resistance, in which nothing is safe from their nihilistic pursuit of pleasure. But what happens when the fun is over? Matching her anarchic message with an equally radical aesthetic, director Věra Chytilová, with the close collaboration of cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, unleashes an optical storm of fluctuating film stocks, kaleidoscopic montages, cartoonish stop-motion cutouts, and surreal costumes designed by Ester Krumbachová, who also cowrote the script. The result is Daisies, the most defiant provocation of the Czechoslovak New Wave, an exuberant call to rebellion aimed squarely at those who uphold authoritarian oppression in any form.
From Carmen Grey, Criterion, 2022:
The title of Daisies (1966) evokes innocence and simplicity—an expectation that the prankster accomplices at its heart, Marie I and II, gleefully subvert. Giggling and batting their eyes, they mimic pliable femininity, then turn the tables on the men who would exploit them, in a full-scale assault against decorum. When the Czech director Věra Chytilová made Daisies, her second feature, Czechoslovakia had endured nearly two decades of repressive Communist rule, and she was one of the leading voices in a new generation of filmmakers who expressed resistance through gestures of allegorical insubordination that were semantically slippery enough to possibly get by the censors. Similarly, the Maries operate like guerrilla insurgents across Prague, disguising their true intentions and refusing to dutifully submit their bodies for either labor or male gratification. Their antics are set in the context of modern warfare from the first frames, which jolt us with footage of a World War II dive-bomber’s annihilation, as drums beat a militant march.
Daisies is the most formally radical and one of the most politically subversive films of what is now known as the Czechoslovak New Wave. The bold innovators of that movement—which emerged in the sixties and also included Miloš Forman, Jiří Menzel, and Jan Němec, among others—rebelled against the straightforward morality tales of the officially mandated socialist realism with dark, absurdist satires about the indignities of life under Soviet "Communism".
Their work was energized by a new cultural openness and appetite for reform in Czechoslovakia, which would culminate in 1968’s Prague Spring, when First Secretary Alexander Dubček moved to implement “socialism with a human face.” But the heady taste of greater creative freedom was brief. In August, Kremlin hard-liner Leonid Brezhnev sent tanks to squash the liberalization efforts, and a censorship crackdown followed. Daisies was banned, and Chytilová was effectively blacklisted for years. Today, more than a half century on, the film has lost none of its incendiary force.
In fact, the post-invasion ban of Daisies was its second. The film had premiered in Prague on December 30, 1966, and, for the next several months, been widely popular in Czechoslovakia with both critics and audiences. This positive reception of such a radical film led a member of Parliament to issue an official critique in May 1967; shortly thereafter, Daisies was suppressed by censors until March 1968—after which it could briefly be seen again until the Soviet invasion and clampdown.
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CHELSEA LATE NIGHTS -
DAISIES
(Vera Chytilová, 1966, 75min)
(Staff Pick: Ali/Veda/Mimi)
Fri, 11/14 @ 10PM
Sat, 11/15 @ 10PM
Sun, 11/16 @ 10:30AM
If the entire world is bad, why shouldn’t we be? Adopting this insolent attitude as their guiding philosophy, a pair of hedonistic young women (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová), both named Marie, embark on a gleefully debauched odyssey of gluttony, giddy destruction, and antipatriarchal resistance, in which nothing is safe from their nihilistic pursuit of pleasure. But what happens when the fun is over? Matching her anarchic message with an equally radical aesthetic, director Věra Chytilová, with the close collaboration of cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, unleashes an optical storm of fluctuating film stocks, kaleidoscopic montages, cartoonish stop-motion cutouts, and surreal costumes designed by Ester Krumbachová, who also cowrote the script. The result is Daisies, the most defiant provocation of the Czechoslovak New Wave, an exuberant call to rebellion aimed squarely at those who uphold authoritarian oppression in any form.
From Carmen Grey, Criterion, 2022:
The title of Daisies (1966) evokes innocence and simplicity—an expectation that the prankster accomplices at its heart, Marie I and II, gleefully subvert. Giggling and batting their eyes, they mimic pliable femininity, then turn the tables on the men who would exploit them, in a full-scale assault against decorum. When the Czech director Věra Chytilová made Daisies, her second feature, Czechoslovakia had endured nearly two decades of repressive Communist rule, and she was one of the leading voices in a new generation of filmmakers who expressed resistance through gestures of allegorical insubordination that were semantically slippery enough to possibly get by the censors. Similarly, the Maries operate like guerrilla insurgents across Prague, disguising their true intentions and refusing to dutifully submit their bodies for either labor or male gratification. Their antics are set in the context of modern warfare from the first frames, which jolt us with footage of a World War II dive-bomber’s annihilation, as drums beat a militant march.
Daisies is the most formally radical and one of the most politically subversive films of what is now known as the Czechoslovak New Wave. The bold innovators of that movement—which emerged in the sixties and also included Miloš Forman, Jiří Menzel, and Jan Němec, among others—rebelled against the straightforward morality tales of the officially mandated socialist realism with dark, absurdist satires about the indignities of life under Soviet "Communism".
Their work was energized by a new cultural openness and appetite for reform in Czechoslovakia, which would culminate in 1968’s Prague Spring, when First Secretary Alexander Dubček moved to implement “socialism with a human face.” But the heady taste of greater creative freedom was brief. In August, Kremlin hard-liner Leonid Brezhnev sent tanks to squash the liberalization efforts, and a censorship crackdown followed. Daisies was banned, and Chytilová was effectively blacklisted for years. Today, more than a half century on, the film has lost none of its incendiary force.
In fact, the post-invasion ban of Daisies was its second. The film had premiered in Prague on December 30, 1966, and, for the next several months, been widely popular in Czechoslovakia with both critics and audiences. This positive reception of such a radical film led a member of Parliament to issue an official critique in May 1967; shortly thereafter, Daisies was suppressed by censors until March 1968—after which it could briefly be seen again until the Soviet invasion and clampdown.
