User reviews

To take this film way out of context, I've got to believe that nine out of ten Miranda July fans would enjoy this film made in 1966 well before Little Miss Moviola was born. Indeed, I would recommend this film for anyone in the mood for a non-linear romp. The film is a cut-up, not just comical...but even as sort of visual equivalent of Brion Gysin's dreammachine.

In particular there is a scene with scissors that was captivating, not in being a "cutting edge" special effect, but in embracing the hands-on art-for-art sake editing. Through out the film Colors come and go, blossoming and wilting like the "Daisies" of the title. Or perhaps "Daisies" are cited for their ability to sprout up under peculiar conditions. An antidote to the bummer that face trummerflora in the midst of any upheaval.

That director Vera Chytilova was doing this under the watchful, and at best blind, eye of Comrade Censor, I think can attribute to the film's non-linear approach. Perhaps part defense-mechanism, perhaps part lyrical lysergic reaction to the disciplined times, the film surely wants to defy something, but settles for defying classification. Ironically, that might be what makes these well cut "Daisies" fresh to this day. A silent film with sound. A black and white film that bursts into colors.

I went in knowing nothing about the "Czech New Wave" and in now reading around, it seems this is the wrong film from which to build a center about. I still know nothing, but I am at least intrigued. Indeed, I was certain one of the two main Marie's was the filmmaker herself. Wrong! The fact that Chytilova made this when she was 36 or so is almost as impressive as making it in the political climate of the time.

The film is extremely playful, and the actresses deserve much praise that has heretofore been lacking. If you enjoyed the film, and clearly I did while others at IMDb did not, a key is that there is something about the two leads, beyond their costumes that snares our attention. Although I do think garlands and veils should find themselves into more femme's fatal fashion... Oh and since I'm older than this film, I kept seeing the two actresses as Carol Burnett and maybe Joanne Worley?!?! Any ways the two seem to be truly delighting themselves, and one wonders if some of the madness was improvised on the spot. Or were they really just puppets as the initial scene suggests??

Anyways, this film is as artful as it is ambiguous. I was enjoying my modern-day interpretation, knowing full well that it was wrong. That interpretation is that women have replaced their sex drive with a food urge, but must leverage the less evolved male's sex drive to satisfy their advanced needs. And again, I confess to crimes against the state and more importantly the film, I *know* I am wrong. Stamping my own ideas on the fragile frames of the film.

Similarly, the flower-power of the 60's in the US could pollinate the film and be seen a diatribe against that which is drab. But again, that appears to be all hippy, and none too hip to the intention.

The film maker, in a 1975 letter addressed to "Comrade President" (her phrase for Gustav Husak) wrote

"Daisies" was a morality play showing how evil does not necessarily manifest itself in an orgy of destruction caused by the war, that its roots may lie concealed in the malicious pranks of everyday life. I chose as my heroines two young girls because it is at this age that one most wants to fulfill oneself and, if left to one's own devices, his or her need to create can easily turn into its very opposite."

By the way, the full letter was on the DVD.

I don't know, I still think this is a film that begs to be taken out of context...and certainly plucked off of dusty shelves and seen by many today. Show it to kids, I bet they'll laugh at this like they would at "Laurel and Hardy" or "Buster Keaton."

7/10 Thurston Hunger

This was the most pleasurable thing I've ever watched. The scenes were beautifully put together. The style changed from black and white to sepia to colourful, sometimes with a blueish tint, sometime with other colours. I loved the saccadic camera movements that matched certain sounds, e.g. a phone ringing. The actresses' styling (clothes, hair, makeup) was also beautiful. The music was very good (e.g. an epic battle kind of piece of music during the cake fight between the girls). I liked the fact that the plot's point was to explore how the girls' reaction to the world's "badness" will end. But there were certain points that I didn't quite understand. I didn't really like how the girls sometimes spoke in a robotic manner, or how they seemed too naive and silly. Maybe that was the point: perfection isn't art anyway. I appreciate the fact that the director (Vera Chytilova) made this film in a time when women didn't have the freedom they have today. One of the main themes in the film is women breaking the barriers of the society they live in, and the rules dictating their behaviour. It really is emblematic in that sense. Overall I really enjoyed watching this film, but I didn't get where the plot was going, and where it actually went, plus the details I mentioned. But I would recommend it to anyone.

The opening of 'Daisies' features a montage of two subjects very familiar to 1966 Eastern Bloc film audiences: work and war, as shots of an industrial machine alternate with views of rubbling city from an airplane bomber's point of view. These are masculine subjects in a very masculine culture. Or they seem to be. The machine features a circular mechanism, and represents repetition, but also productivity, and might be said to represent female principles, whereas the war footage is of pure destruction. The heroines of 'Daisies' embody both these gender-specific realms, and manage to create something new. They are idle, but, like George Costanza, their indolence depends on relentless invention. They are destructive, but out of the destruction they produce something new.

'Daisies' was a product of the Czech New Wave, but seems a million miles away from its most famous contemporaries, the films of Menzel and Forman. These latter, though liberal and anti-totalitarian, were artistically conservative - deliberately humanist works, where 'real', psychologically plausible characters exist in 'real' places, and every narrative progression makes logical sense. If they seem 'timeless' to us now, it is because they didn't truly engage with their own times.

And, of course, they were male. Where they seem closer to the 19th century novel, or classic Hollywood cinema, Chytilova's peers are the great European modernists, Godard, Paradjanov, Makajev, Rivette, or the plays of Ionesco. Where Forman and Menzel framed their illusions of realism in formal coherence, Chytilova revels in formal instability. These aren't psychologically plausible characters in a cause-and-effect universe. We first meet the two Maries after the opening credits, and their automaton gestures, with accompanying sound effects, continue the movement of the machine.

The plot basically consists of the girls trying to chat up old men who'll feed them, but what they really do is make a nonsense of plot. The recurring motif is the posy of roses worn by Marie II, and thrown by her to further the story - we remember the nursery rhyme 'a ring a ring of rosies, a pocketful of posies, a tishoo, a tishoo, we all fall down'. And everything falls down here, in a game where the rules have splintered and fragmented.

The film mixes monochrome, colour, and unstably tinted scenes. Sequences that begin 'sensibly' are broken down, by slapstick, changes of register, 'impossible' changes of location or physics, or are turned from natural scenes into the robotic movements of a clockwork toy going out of control. This disruption has a theoretical point - in one scene, the girls find their bodies cut up as they find their identities dissolved by conflicting desires, social expectations and representations. In another, they wander around a dream space, wondering why people pay no attention to them, realising that 'logically', they mustn't exist, because Western culture has no place for them.

Just as they parody the notions of work and war (in the climactic food orgy, martial army music soundtracks a cake fight), so these sprites play with and destroy the assumptions of Western humanism, its claims to adequately represent 'reality', especially in a time of such bewildering, radical change, as in the 1960s. They do to cinema what Ionesco did to literature, cut it into shreds.

The whole thing plays like parody Godard, with Marie II as Anna Karina, with meaningful conversations about love accompanied by the girls cutting up sausages and bananas: the butterfly sequence is a wicked lampoon of 'Vivre sa Vie'. Where Godard's heroines remained fixed and stared at, the two Maries laugh, look, escape, see their frame and break it, insist on their body as something more than an object, something they can play with themselves.

Not even the heroines' liberating subversivess is fixed - their mindless appetite is punished as often as their formal iconoclasm is celebrated. But for all its theoretical rigour, 'Daisies' never sacrifices its sense of humour - I first saw it when I was ten, and loved it for its slapstick fun, its narrative unpredictability, its playful soundtrack, and its tireless visual invention. I still love it now.

This is really worth seeing. It's hard to explain why. There is no plot. There is no character development. There is a lot of beautiful surrealism. Like with anything from Dada and related art, the full effect only hits you after you stop asking "Why?" and "Whaa?" and "What the hell?". When you past that point, you'll have a great time.

The charming nihilism captured in the movie is something that we couldn't duplicate nowadays, even if we tried.

Blond Marie and brunette Marie are best friends and chaos creators. Brunette Marie declares that the world is spoiled and they're going to do the spoiling.

The girls are doing sexy baby acting. Their characters are bratty children living off of their sex appeal. Mostly, they are sex teases tricking food out of horny men. The film is experimental, doing a lot of different things all over the place. It's trying very hard to be surreal. Sometimes, it's using wacky sounds. It keeps switching from black and white to color while sometimes doing different color filters. I find a lot of it akin to student films trying to be artistic. It does stumble on some interesting effects once in awhile. The streaming train looks cool and the poker dot dresses are fun. There are intriguing edits. That's this movie. It's throwing a lot of spaghetti on the wall and some of them actually sticks. I just wish that it could limit the number of weird effects to give the best ideas more weight. It's strangely fascinating and an intriguing look into cinema at a certain time in a certain place. It's saying something about the atmosphere in Prague and the approach of spring.

Vera Chytilova's 1966 film "Daisies" is a surreal, psychedelic Dada explosion from start to finish. The story concerns two teen girls, both named Marie; who act goofy and play slapstick pranks everywhere they go. They take guys on dates to see how obnoxious they can act, before making the men leave. They love food, and these beautiful ladies aren't afraid to eat. Rock on girls! This film is highly trippy and experimental. I love Czech films, but this one is my personal favorite. It is an underrated masterpiece that is rarely talked about. Not only does it have powerful female characters, it's one of the most unique films of the 60's Czech new wave. It uses lots of camera tricks, filters, abstract symbolism and stock footage; for a unique cinematic experience. It also uses food in bizarre juxtapositions. Because of all the food used as art, the film caused Chytilova to be blacklisted. The Czech government said the film was a waste of food and lacked an important message. Oh well, you can't make everyone happy. The camera tricks in this film look similar to the techniques later used in some music videos. My favorite scene in the movie is when the girls crash the banquet hall. They stuff there faces full of food, and it almost turns into a food orgy. If your looking for a good time, "Daisies" is a great film. It's bizarre, colorful, chaotic and filled with laughs. A true Czech masterpiece. Now if only I could visit Prague.

Terrific surreal comedy combined with biting social commentary. From the very first scene, the film presents a world that is both deeply absurd and eerily familiar, drawing the viewer in with its off-kilter humor and playful tone.

The two lead actresses, Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová, give stunning performances as the two young women who gleefully embark on a series of outrageous adventures, from dining on mountains of food to wreaking havoc at a fancy dinner party. Their chemistry is electric, and their anarchic energy carries the film's narrative to its satisfyingly bizarre conclusion.

But beneath the surface of this madcap romp lies a deeper message about the nature of society and the roles we are expected to play within it. The film's critiques of consumerism, gender roles, and societal expectations are just as relevant today as they were in 1966, and the film's surreal visuals and absurdist humor make those critiques all the more potent.

Daisies is a great piece of cinematic art, a bizarre comedy that you can't look away from, with a trenchant social commentary that is just as relevant today as it was over 50 years ago.

Daisies is a wonderful embodiment of the Prague Spring. Hedonism and consumerism get criticised while the inflammatory criticism is coded more subtly. At a time when Stalinism was being re-examined and the reputations of many Czechs were being "rehabilitated", Daisies was a well-masked critique of these reforms. The crazy 1960s cinematography, the strange accents of the two main characters, and the sheer hedonism (the economy was quite poor at the time) give a surreal edge to what is not a surreal film. The film also hints of a Czechoslovakia identifying with Western Europe and impatient with the regime -- despite its reforms. The cinematography is fun and the story is a definite upending of the usual role of women in Czech films. If you're looking for deep symbolism, you'll be disappointed. But as a fun romp, a sign of the times, and a historical piece, Daisies is superb.

I mean...she did indeed have some daisies on her head.

So this is a weird one. Mostly, this entire film consists of two girls acting out, annihilating every social norm they possibly can, and annoying a whole lot of people. Including me by the end, because while I was definitely on board with all this anarchy in the first half, by the second half it got so unbelievably repetitive for me, as I really did just sum up the whole film at the beginning of this paragraph. And in a film that's only 75 minutes long, that's really not a good sign.

I didn't really find it all that funny either, so while the two girls' performances are brilliant, and I think its satire on how girls are expected to act is in theory very interesting, the weird directing, cinematography, sound, and editing just didn't do it for me. It'll definitely make for a lot of strange images stuck in my head for a while, but I just wasn't feeling much of the intended effect at all.

I wouldn't be caught dead saying that it's not an interesting experience, or that I couldn't understand why anyone who loves it feels that way, but I also can't see myself ever watching it again, soooooo...are we happy?

I guess I'm happy, I don't regret watching it, and like I said, it's only 75 minutes long, and it's so weird and unique that I could never tell whether or not anyone would like it, so you might as well give it a look.

Being interested in surreal films generally and Czech films particularly (I'm a big Svankmajer fan), I thought I'd give this one a go. Well, this is the first time I've ever agreed with communist censors. 'Depicting the wanton' is right. It is simultaneously the most pretentious and the most banal product of Czech New Wave cinema.

Chytilova's mercifully brief film follows two spoiled brats as they gorge and entertain themselves at the expense of others; seriously, about half of this film involves eating. They are taken on dates with dull-looking gentlemen whom they manipulate, ditching them at the train station after their meal has been paid for. Other men they simply ignore, such as one butterfly-obsessed suitor who calls to plead forgiveness and profess his love, as the girls gleefully scissor bananas, pickles and sausages in what may be the most on-the-nose example of feminist symbolism ever expressed in film.

It's fortunate that the girls are attractive, because they are otherwise intolerably obnoxious, acting like 12-year-olds at a slumber party -- jumping around, cooing to each other, and laughing in chipmunk-like squeals. At one point there is the following exchange, which sums them up nicely: "Your legs are crooked." "Don't you know that's just what I based my personality on?" That is, beyond their pointless antics, they have no personalities. I'm sure there are those who think this kind of thing is a 'daring' display of grrl power, but in reality it could not make women look worse. "We're supposed to be spoiled, aren't we?" -- lines like this make me wonder whether the characters were ever intended to be sympathetic. (If they are intended as a self-critique, they are a critique of the hedonism brought on by liberalization of Czech society, certainly something Chytilova does not intend.) At least the conclusion was satisfying, involving a deserved death by chandelier.

Chytilova's idea of surrealism is color filters and hyperactive whimsy. A few scenes capture interest, but in general little thought is given to composition. At certain points, especially near the end, the film approaches Godard-esque pretension, which only added to my frustration. It's not just farce, it's politically relevant farce! Well, I'm not fooled.

During the film's last moments, a typewriter scrolls the words 'This film is dedicated to those who get upset only over a stomped-upon bed of lettuce', as explosions detonate in the background. The implication is that you, the viewer, should go screw yourself if you think you have any right to criticize narcissistic wastefulness, especially when there are wars going on. It's a perfect encapsulation of liberalism: only things which directly harm other people are worth worrying about. It's hard to imagine a more trivial moral standard, but there it is, dressed up as radical chic. In the end, there are only two types of people who enjoy this movie: quirk-addicts who want a film to giggle over, and leftist pseudo-intellectuals, for whom nothing is too banal to justify in the name of rebellion. I'm neither, so I thought the film was garbage.

One of the most vibrant and fun art house films you are ever likely to see. Vera Chytilova was merging feminism, nihilism, psychedelic color filters, collage aesthetic, and silent film slapstick into a one of a kind film about two young girls named Marie who decide to self destruct, and be just as wicked as the world. They con men into buying them lunch and ditch them at train stations, get drunk in posh nightclubs, set their beds on fire, and lay siege to whole banquets(this latter bit got the film and the director into a lot of trouble with the Soviet Czech government for "wasting food"). Anyway this is an energetic and vibrant film as you're likely to find anywhere, and unlike so many great euro art films, this is as fun to watch as it is think about afterwords. I've shown this movie to a lot of people and I've never had a complaint, it clocks in at just over an hour, so if you've got the time, go for it. It's a one of kind experience(in fact the worst part of this movie is the cover).

This is one of the strangest non-linear films that I have ever seen, and therefore it is one of the hardest films to comment on. After an excellent beginning montage sequence, the film plunges into the world of two women who agree to be "bad". The reason for this is supposedly that all else is bad in the world already, so they should be bad too. The rest of the film involves them acting glutton, especially when they are around men. So what is the meaning of this? Is it some feminist statement in which the women try to gain power by the way they eat? There are a lot of allusions to the male sexual organs that back up this theory, but the real point of it all is still rather obscure. It is an interesting enough concept as it is, but the downfall comes from the premise being stretched to the length of a feature film. While the excessiveness can be tolerated, the same stuff is generally repeated over and over, and there is little reason apparent why it could have not been done in just twenty minutes of film. As awkward and confusing as it is, the length to which the material is stretched is what hammers is potency. Either way, the film is certainly work a look. The colour work is fascinating, the sound effects are interesting, and it is an intriguing film to a limited extent, due to the ambiguity of its messages and story.

For its renewal of the spirit of DADA, for its sixties potlatch, for its fine excess, for its playful modernist montage, this is certainly the most formally revolutionary of all the Czech New Wave films I have seen. It escapes and transcends the heavy moral dissidence of the other great Prague Spring directors, and even manages to transcend its time and place. An authentic work of creative genius, its 'high spirits' belong to another world, a world which subverts the grip of everyday totalitarianism, and, as DADA updated, topples the philistines left and right.

'Daises' is the most ingenious women movie ever made. The key for watching the movie is to immediately accept the two women as real. Every second in this movie is a statement, so it overwhelms the spectator whether he/she likes it or not. Keep up with Vera C. (the director) because willingly or not she discloses the most precious secret of women's mind. The only condition is that you must like and enjoy her two women (girls). It is a privilege to watch this forty year old movie. The movie was done long before any consensus was reached about the social status of women. The seemingly chaotic world brings out the most essential needs. Vera C. brings us the best out of the'theater of absurd' stream. I think Samuel Beckett would have been impressed with this Experiment.

Two sexy girls in Communist Czechoslovakia decide that patriarchal society is spoiled and decide to become spoiled themselves, just to see what it's like. This involves going out for fancy dinners with old men in comfortable positions and taking them for the proverbial ride of which the geezers want to literally take the girls. Eventually the girls encounter authentic communist workers who are too busy to be interested in pursuing them. The girls subsequently decide that they are tired of being spoiled, but by then it's too late. The Stalinist authorities are tired of them taking food from their plates, and they condemn the girls, just as the Czech state in fact ostricized the film and its female autuer.

This partly surrealist romp by two strange young women starts out as a challenge and then we embrace their energy and outrageousness. They are gluttons of every sort. Not just in the epicureanism that drives them, but in experiences and manipulations that the pass through, once they have made a commitment to be spoiled. There are scenes of avarice and excess, including coming on to old men who are willing to buy them expensive dinners, hoping for a sexual encounter. The are eventually put on a train out of town. The movie, however, has a tremendous edge to it which we eventually come to see. These girls are so engaging. I began to hate them for a while because of their obsessiveness, but then I realized what they represented. There are symbols all over the place, many of them phallic (sausages that are being trimmed with knives and scissors), and so this would be an interesting study. The images of war are a part of all this and the things that upset us are modest compared to the bombings of cities and the destruction of humanity.

Director Vera Chytilova's anarchic feminist film from the mid 1960s (right before the Czech new wave movement was broken by the Soviet Invasion that ended the Prague Spring) is hard to describe in terms of plot. Basically, it's about the various antics and gags of two young women. The victims of their practical jokes tend to be established society in general (which exists even in a socialist system as was Czechoslovakia at the time), and older men in particular. Aggressively experimental, the movie uses several types of film stocks, even in a single scene, as well as in your face editing cuts. There are several anti-phallic gags (with the girls cutting while giggling sausages, bananas, etc.) as well as an apocalyptic food fight (the girls seem to have a particular obsession with food). It's fun, imaginative, subversive, but even at a running time of less than half an hour, tiresome at times.

I'd heard very good things about this, and it had been on my watchlist for years...

Disappointing therefore to find that I didn't really enjoy it that much. After an intriguing start it just descends into silliness. I'm sure there's a political message in here but even for a short film it got too boring for me. Nice though to see the Franziska restaurant in Prague, which used to be my favourite.

Nice cinematography though. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood...?

The life of two girls, Marie I and Marie II, who try to understand the meaning of the world and of their life. Through the power of film, this just might be accomplished.

This film is brilliant. Weird, odd, quirky, eccentric... call it what you will, but there is a brilliance here that combines dadaism and existentialism, puts it on film, and it all looks amazing.

So many different styles are shown here that it is a small tragedy that this film has never been known in America. Over 40 years later and I only heard of it because of a British documentary. We really need to get more people watching it.