Daisies - a film discussion

Daisies (1966) is a film about two young women (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová), both called Marie (although throughout they have many pseudonyms), who enter into a hedonistic journey and descend into chaos in reaction to the world around them.

Overall, I see Daisies as a film that is making fun of societal expectations and prompts philosophical and critical reflection in the viewer. I really enjoyed the loose narrative, and that it requires the audience to think as they are watching it. Věra Chytilová, in collaboration with cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, have created a very radical aesthetic which utilizes many unique aspects. It engages with principles from the Dada movement, which I could pick up on in various scenes. The use of montage, juxtaposition, and absurdism brought this to the forefront, as well as their repeated statements of "this doesn't matter", "we exist" and a general combination of hedonism and nihilism, as these are frequent sentiments in the Dada movement (can't figure out how to link a reference but I will.) There is also a strong anti-patriarchal feel to the film, which in itself is a radical choice as it creates shock and unease, in a 1966 audience, as gender politics are incredibly fraught at this moment in time.

What keeps coming to mind is the fact that a very big theme in this film is food and consumption. Food is often used as a motif that can show excess and a lack in art forms. The fact that these women eat and consume without abandon is revolutionary for the time. Women, then and now, are expected to be polite and not take up space. This theme of them gorging themselves is at complete odds with the status quo, and I love it. They feel feral and wild like nothing matters and that they are living for only themselves. Here is a vision of living in a way that does not conform to societal expectations, and rids any sort of self-consciousness from their reality. In some ways, it inspires me to care less about what others think about me and to lean into experiencing the world in a hedonistic way. Their gluttony is joyous, and it carries throughout the film. The fire scene is really interesting, as there is this visual dialogue between the man calling 'Julie' and pining for her to love, and with the woman cutting apart phallic foods with scissors, metaphorically emasculating this man on the phone. This sequence is masterful, it feels like an inside joke and feels incredibly tactile. I can feel the crunchiness of the pickles, the smokiness of the room, the textures of the eggs. It engages in Haptic Visuality and it elevates this scenes symbolism. In addition, the scenes where they are out to lunch with lecherous old men are scenes where philosophical reflection occurs. At once, they are both seductive and repulsive to the male gaze. They keep the men interested with stereotypical flirtations such as batting their lashes, licking spoons, and being coy and giggly. And this is at odds with their ravenous hunger and lust for the food and wine bought for them. It's a genius critique of patriarchy, as these women exploit these men to satiate themselves, which usually happens in the inverse yet fits into the status quo.

The socio-political context of this film is important to be aware of, as it impacts how this film was originally received and how it has grown since then. The one thing that critics could agree on was that it was ambiguous, and censors in Czechoslovakia had a very hard time banning it. Eventually, they agreed that the food waste was out of sync with the country's ideology, and banned it. In addition, throughout the film, we get glimpses of documentary footage of warfare. 1966 was two years before the Prague Spring, which was a period of intense social revolution and uprising in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. At the end of 1968, Soviet forces invaded the country to suppress reforms. With this in mind, we can understand why these young women see the world as 'spoiled', in the most violent and destructive meaning of the word. Their nihilism makes sense, and as a 2023 viewer I can see a lot of parallels between their actions and feelings, and now. Except I feel like there is more a sense of collective PTSD which as a global society we are working through post-pandemic, and we are yet to reach this level of hedonism en masse, rather the elites are pursuing this with abandon.