Daisies (1966)

Daisies (dir. V. Chytilova) take an anarchistic approach to the process of film-making as well as the topics (or can we talk about topics here?) the film explores: gender and sexuality. This is yet another film in which two girls (they are both called Marie) are friends in a mysterious, hilarious and inexplicable way. This stereotype about the unintelligible nature of girls' friendship worries me. But this film is surely not stereotypical in an ordinary sense: instead of showing two girls wrapped up in their private games that exclude the surrounding world, creating a little private sphere of their own, Daisies conjures up a much more subversive image of play and imagination. These girls are not innocent and in the process of "growing up" to become mature, responsible women. No, no, no! These girls have grander schemes. Constantly at play, they mock ridiculous gender patterns, they play with a world of architecture and "tasteful things". The girls world don't end in maturity and child-rearing - no it ends with a grand finale of food throwing and general fuck-up. These girls are part of the situationist international, rather than a private party of two confused girls in need of some adult guidance. The film shows that sometimes girls have to disrupt the logic of being cute and cuddly beings for men to caress - sometimes girls have to indulge in a spree of causing mayhem. We need to talk about the style of the film. This is surreal stuff, one of the most experimental films of the Czech new wave, but it is (I think) not that famous among movie buffs. The aesthetics of pop art blends in with twisted little scenes of social critique - it is an aesthetics of performativity that is all the time rooted in a sense of how weird the contemporary "tasteful" world of men and woman (involved in "tasteful" mating games) really is. The colors of the scenes are constantly changing, only sometimes to erupt in fantastic little swirls of shapes. Daisies is a fun, wacky and experimental film. You should watch it.