Dani G
This was like a "freestyle" movie, in terms of acting, directing, editing.... "let's do this (whatever) and see what results we have"
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
08/30/23
Full Review
Jens B
This film brought me pure joy!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
05/31/23
Full Review
Matthew D
I adore Daisies!
Czech auteur Věra Chytilová's Czechoslovakian surrealist comedy Daisies (1966) remains the most creative and playful absurdist film I have ever seen. Daisies is perhaps the silliest satire of bourgeois decadence in a picture. Daisies combines slapstick, surrealist imagery, absurdist humor, visual metaphors, and verbal wit. Chytilová's daring direction takes a goofy and colorful approach to satirizing the impoverished masses left starving by the Czech government with her anarchist attitude. She accomplishes this by having her dual heroines constantly eating, while not working, and simply conning creepy old gentlemen into paying for their meals. Daisies is superbly imaginative and unparalleled in innovation. Věra Chytilová was a genius!
Editor Miroslav Hájek splices together montages of dancing, the girls cutting each other apart, to a myriad of transitions with collages of all types of visually stimulating imagery. I simply loved when the girls wanted to do something new, then Hájek cuts to them rolling down a hill or they see a farmer watering his garden, then it cuts to them walking away with a dozen stolen corn on the cobs. Daisies simply cannot be compared to any other film. You know Daisies is a sheer blast of pleasure as it clocks in at only 76 minutes of quirky personality and silly delights.
Cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera picks careful blocking in frame to ensure the girls look extra silly and we're often focused on their mesmerizing eyes. The crafty cinematography choices and perspective shifts from panning side shots, tilting shots, turns into bird's eye view, then suddenly we're in far wide shots following the ladies rolling down a hill or chasing a train. It's all so creative and inventive. Every single scene in Daisies is a masterclass in filmmaking.
Writers Pavel Juráček, Věra Chytilová, and Ester Krumbachová bring a hilariously absurdist sense of humor alongside an anarchist's temperament to Daisies. There's not really a plot as it's just these two girls not seeking love or employment, but with simple aspirations to keep eating, dancing, and laughing. I love how the girls are written. Fun is had out of the most mundane or dire of situations as well as all new ways to dupe men into paying for their endless meals. If they commit an evil act of greed, gluttony, or selfishness, then they simply remark that they don't care in the ultimate innocent kid's version of punk nihilism.
You can easily tell why Daisies is a watershed moment for the Czechoslovak New Wave film movement with its peculiar jests, skillful craftsmanship, and negative manner of speech. Taking aim at the patriarchy and authoritarianism by having these ladies not listen to their elders or men and doing what they want of free will instead of communist ideals following their way through life.
I love that Daisies is essentially feminist in nature as the girls have no cares or desires for men other than their wallets and seek no employment other than ways they can break into places to nab more food. Daisies' writing is anarchist, feminist, silly, playful, satirical, existentialist, absurdist, fun loving, creative, and original all the time. These girls are the original Romy and Michele's High School Reunion or Party Girl. Life is a gas and they will inhale, except all the fun is eating food, playfully dancing, and loving the basic joy of cutting things up with scissors.
Ivana Karbanová is adorable as Daisies' heroine Marie II the blonde. She was a salesclerk who made her big eyes stare and just dance towards her meal with delight. I like her character trait of not really loving any man and desiring to cut any phallic imagery with her scissors. She is sublimely silly.
Jitka Cerhová is gorgeous as the Daisies' heroine Marie I the brunette. Her playful eyes and big smile charm as does her playful dancing and bottomless appetite. Her displays of boredom to the point of ennui or sudden vivaciousness in dance and drink are delightful. I really love Jitka in Daisies in particular. She's so striking.
Both actresses were amateurs as Jitka was just a student when she was cast. I found both Ivana and Jitka absolutely breathtakingly beautiful and hilarious in unexpected ways throughout Daisies. They find all sorts of ways to just look or smile at something in an interesting fashion. Their performances feel specific and insane to compound upon all of Daisies' visual chaos in fun ways. They feel nonchalant and excitable, capable of anything really.
Production designer Karel Lier creates an ever changing garden of delights for Marie I and Marie II's bedroom. The blues and greens are stunning, but I really had fun looking at set decorators František Straka, Bedřich Čermák, and Roman Svoboda wallpaper collage of infinite magazine clippings. Their house looks like a serial killer's ransom note. The cute pottery and furnishings to layers of blankets on the bed or prop scissors everywhere is fun. How can you not enjoy art direction from Jaroslav Kučera and Ester Krumbachová shifting the color scheme indoors to complement what the girls are wearing?
Composers Jiří Šust and Jiří Šlitr create playful film orchestration out of random instruments, often timed to the actresses movements for a lark. Their constantly changing music ranges from 1920's flapper tunes to folk music of the 1960's in style. I loved how outrageously brazen the girls' dancing is to these ever changing musical parts. Songwriters Jiří Suchý and Eva Pilarová take into account the varying eras and genres for really original music for Daisies. Sound designers Ladislav Hausdorf use repeating typewriter taps or other goofy noises to emphasize the strange sounds the actresses are making.
Costume designer Ester Krumbachová astounds me with a dozen different outfits from 60's mod sundresses and polka dot bikinis to gowns and lingerie made out of whatever is in the scene. Ester's outfits are as cute and playful as Daisies' belligerent silly heroines. Makeup artists Ladislav Bacílek and Libuše Beranová weave the cutest bob haircut on the blonde and the prettiest curls into the brunette's stunning haircut. Visually, the costumes, hair, and makeup in Daisies is imperative to the oddity that is this art film.
In all, Daisies is totally original for a brief display of surrealist artfulness and absurdist hilarity.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
05/18/23
Full Review
kyle c
Another weird, historically-charged piece of Czech cinema! You're welcome ☺️
As a political statement and as abstract art, this film has a lot to offer. In terms of pure entertainment value, it's hit-or-miss, but it has enough charm to skirt through anyway.
You could do a LOT of analysis on the imagery and symbolism (which my partner has already done; love ya 😘) but I won't get into too much of it here. The important thing is it requires a little bit of context on Central European history, but it's quite effective. The satire works well (it almost feels like the movie is making fun of itself at times) as it ranges from darkly funny to laugh-out-loud hilarious.
But be warned: this movie is WEIRD. It's only like an hour and 15 minutes (which is for the best) but it can get a little exhausting anyway. It's kinda Lynchian and avant garde, which again I'm sure has some symbolism, but it's not always clear without a very in-depth analysis.
Anyway, Daisies is an entertaining, weird movie that you might just wanna Czech out 😉
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Duas garotas, de personalidades fortes e rebeldes, trolando os velhos com predileções pelas ninfetas, recheada de simbolismos, cenas super coloridas, alternando com o preto e branco e o monocromático, entre cortadas com uma colcha de retalhos, dirigindo sensivelmente por uma mulher, todos os ingredientes perfeitos para um filme maravilhoso, entretanto achei o entediante, é uma pena, afinal uma bela obra que eu não soube degustar...
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/12/23
Full Review
William L
Popularly regarded as the masterpiece of Czech 'militant feminist' director Věra Chytilová, Daisies is a brightly colored, absurdist rejection of social norms and the expectations of women by the culture of the day, a stance that you wouldn't expect to find in 1960's Czecholslovakia even before the Soviet invasion (which subsequently resulted in its almost immediate censorship. Taking a full step back from the film's significance in the depiction of women in film, Daisies is a brilliantly edited and visionary Dadaist comedy (scenes like the mutual dismemberment and the ride up the dumbwaiter stand out in particular) that plays with color in unique and interesting ways, championed by a pair of protagonists that just want to eat, drink, and lounge to their hearts' content. But Chytilová is not shy about the justification for why her two antiheroines act in their unrestrained, thoughtless manner - they are women in a society that has been dominated to that point by men (the famous scene of the duo slicing various phallic foods for their dinner really can only carry so many interpretations). In response to this genetic and social slight, Cerhová's and Karbanová's two Maries take advantage of gullible older men to live an ultra-Bohemian lifestyle with surreal twists and an ultimate air of fatalism; probably the film's greatest flaw is some of the more thematically obvious or hamfisted moments, particularly the conclusion ("if we work hard and put everything right, we'll be happy"), but some slack shuld be given considering how few parallels a film of this type had upon release. A subversive piece for its day, Daisies is still pretty darn entertaining with a great sense of originality and a tight runtime. (4/5)
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
05/03/21
Full Review
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