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The protagonists of Vĕra Chytilová’s gleefully anarchic 1966 comedy Daisies are two beautiful young women, both named Marie (although they go by a series of fake names in the movie itself). Marie I (Jitka Cerhová) is a brunette with pouty lips who wears her hair in girlish pigtails; Marie II (Ivana Karbanová) has a strawberry blonde bob and habitually dons a flower crown. After an intro sequence that rolls credits over whirring machinery and footage from World War II, the film cuts to the Maries sitting against a wooden wall like dolls in a toy box (complete with creaking joint noises), lamenting the “spoiled world” and resolving to beat it at its own game. And so the stage is set: it is a horrible day in Czechoslovakia, and two equally horrible (yet strangely likable) girls set out to cause problems on purpose.

While there might be filmmakers who more readily come to the minds of cinephiles when you mention Czech New Wave cinema of the 1960s, I'd argue that there is no more important film of that era than Daisies. Věra Chytilová's groundbreaking film is at once a art collage, a philosophical rant, an experiment in form, and a tale of two women on the cusp of the sexual revolution. Deceptively complex and intelligent, deeply humourous, often dark and brimming with energy, it defies both expectations and easy categorization. Even more than 50 years after its creation, it remains fresh, relevant, and unequaled. Marie I (Jitka Cerhová) and Marie II (Ivana Karbanová) are two seemingly ordinary yound women who randomly decide one day to be bad. Well,...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

"We exist, we exist..." Janus Films has revealed a superb new 4K restoration trailer for the Czech New Wave feminist masterpiece Daises, first released in 1966. Directed by Vera Chytilová as her second feature at the time, the film was restored and premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in the Classics section earlier this year. After realizing that all world is spoiled, Marie and Marie are committed to be spoiled themselves. They rip off older men, feast in lavish meals and do all kinds of mischief. But what is all this leading to? A very good question, and hopefully the film criticizes that lavishness instead of continues to indulge in it. The film stars Jitka Cerhová as Marie I the Brunette + Ivana Karbanová as Marie II the Blonde. Described in reviews as: "Among the essential movies of the '60s, a bolt of liberatory lightning that illuminates future possibilities." This is...

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "Daisies"

Where You Can Stream It: HBO Max, The Criterion Channel

The Pitch: After an introduction that focuses on images of gears turning and bombs dropping, Věra Chytilová's Czech New Wave classic opens with two young women (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová), both named Marie, slouching against a wooden fence in their bathing suits. One picks her nose while the other plays a single note on a trumpet before boredly announcing, "I can't even do that." When...

The post The Daily Stream: Daisies Is a Subversive Classic That Still Feels Modern appeared first on /Film.

by Vadim Rizov

A tornado took Dorothy out of black-and-white Kansas into colorful Oz: destruction bred creation and imaginative release. The link in Vera Chytilová’s Daisies is brusquer. Two girls are sitting in what appears to be some kind of bathhouse: Marie I (Jitka Cerhová) is the brunette, Marie II (Ivana Karbanová) the blonde. A brief discussion of the state of the world leads to the conclusion that it's spoiled, and hence the Maries will be too. Marie I slaps Marie II, knocking her backwards out of the black-and-white interior into a colorful field.

"Even those of us who love Daisies have trouble finding the proper terms to account for it," blogger/theorist Steven Shaviro wrote in 2007. Many dazzling, ahead-of-their-time effects literally saturate Daisies, their connection to broader ideological dissent rarely obvious. Within a brief scene, Chytilová will cut every few seconds to slather the shot in another pop-art monochrome.