AN ALL TIME FAVORITE: ****/****You can ask what DAISIES is about, and the answer is difficult to really say in concrete terms. I can't give a plot summary because, really, there is no real plot. It's jittery and spastic. It doesn't want to stay in one place. What DAISIES asks of you is to simply keep attention on its high-wired antics and feed off its energy. It's a trip, and it's one of my favorite trips ever. However, I suppose that if I were to say what DAISIES is about, I would say it's simply about rebellion. Two teenage girls, both named Marie (performed with giddy recklessness by Ivana Karbanovà and Jitka Cerhovà) decide that, since the world is acting so rotten, they'll be rotten, too. They spend the rest of the movie indulging in their newfound "rottenness," and that's pretty much it, sort of... DAISIES was made in 1966 Czechoslovakia, right around the time of the outbreak of the Prague Spring, a revolt of the harsh Communist government at the time. What "rottenness" the DAISIES girls partake in directly contradicts this regime. Consider its Wizard-of-Ozian approach. When it begins. it's shot in black and white. The camera is stagnant. Then begins the anarchy! And you know how sometimes a movie is just sheer joy to watch? That's what it is to see the Maries break out. It's just a blast! Their anarchy isn't malicious as much as it is just silly, always striving to shake things up in their world. While the director, the brilliant Vera Chytilova, is definitely making a statement against her restrictive society, the Maries within the movie seem to be more concerned with fulfilling themselves in a way they never have before. As much at it mocks strict Communism, it also seems to be a pretty sound feminist statement. And in the midst of all its very driven purpose, it's executed with the kind of prismatic attention deficiency of Wonderland, and it is glorious. DAISIES is hyper-driven, surreal, absolutely manic fun. I cannot do justice to how breathlessly this movie snips, bleeds, and sugar-highs its way through its very short (79 min) running time, but I can tell you this much-- be prepared for the most radical food fight scene of all time. That's all I can really say. Dig in. Daisies is available on DVD through the BFI, Criterion Collection's Pearls of the Czech New Wave boxed set, or to stream through Filmstruck.
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