“This is dedicated to those who get upset only over a stomped-upon bed of lettuce.”
The avant garde piece directed by Chytilová is weird but wonderful. Daisies became a key historical film for the Czech New Wave movement, the film was banned and Chytilová was forbidden to work again for over ten years. Two girls known as Marie 1 and Marie 2 decide that they can be spoilt because the world is spoilt too. The girls dress up, meet older men to take them for luxurious dinner dates and then make excuses to leave along with a set of events that feel like Charlie Chaplin’s slapstick comedy scenes where the girls jump on and off trains to escape the old men. They refuse to work and sit around their apartment cutting up things and mostly eating food. The girls are seen eating continuously throughout the film whilst the film makes a statement on communist Czechoslovakia through comedy that may be uncomfortable for some men to watch as feminist elements are present.
While the girls dress in polka dots, bikini’s, bold coloured dresses, dark eyeliner and chains of daisies they dance around their disorganised apartment, pretend to be dolls and manically cause chaos and mischief across the town, it feels as if we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and into a wonderland that somewhat repulses me and yet feels like a complete escapist, free and carless life that I could enjoy to live like.
With the films bright dazzling coloured filters, special effects and quick editing the film becomes what feels like an LSD trip. Daisies is a short film running at 74 minutes, but it makes the film enjoyable.