Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1966 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Ivana Karbanová, Jitka Cerhová, Marie Češková
If the entire world is bad, why shouldn’t we be? Adopting this insolent attitude as their guiding philosophy, a pair of hedonistic young women (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová), both named Marie, embark on a gleefully debauched odyssey of gluttony, giddy destruction, and antipatriarchal resistance, in which nothing is safe from their nihilistic pursuit of pleasure. But what happens when the fun is over? Matching her anarchic message with an equally radical aesthetic, director Věra Chytilová, with the close collaboration of cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, unleashes an optical storm of fluctuating film stocks, kaleidoscopic montages, cartoonish stop-motion cutouts, and surreal costumes designed by Ester Krumbachová, who also cowrote the script. The result is DAISIES, the most defiant provocation of the Czechoslovak New Wave, an exuberant call to rebellion aimed squarely at those who uphold authoritarian oppression in any form.
Up Next in Directed by Věra Chytilová
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Pearls of the Deep
Directed by Jiří Menzel, Věra Chytilová, Jaromil Jireš, Jan Němec, and Evald Schorm • 1966 • Czechoslovakia
A manifesto of sorts for the Czech New Wave, this five-part anthology shows off the breadth of expression offered by the movement's versatile directors.
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Fruit of Paradise
Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1970 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Jitka Nováková, Karel Novak, Jan SchmidOpening with a senses-ravishing, psychedelic vision of Eden, this tantalizing political allegory sets the story of Adam and Eve in a European health spa where a vacationing couple (Jitka Nováková ...
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Prefab Story
Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1979 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Lukás Bech, Antonín Vanha, Eva KacírkováOne of the unsung masterpieces of Věra Chytilová’s still largely obscure post-sixties career, this stingingly satiric yet deeply human tragicomedy surveys the everyday absurdity of existence in a...
