Last week at Basso, they showed the 1966 Czech film Daisies (Sedmikrásky) by Věra Chytilová, and I have to say I absolutely adored it, and would highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.
Věra Chytilová's 'Daisies (Sedmikrásky)' is considered one of the key works of the Czechoslovakian New Wave movement, which, as I am just learning myself, can be better understood by clicking this wiki page link.
Chytilová's rejection of traditional values, both within the film's narrative (the two protagonists [female] make a pact to behave 'badly' within their patriarchal society and subsequently create whirlwinds of bizarre and humorous situations), and formally, Chytilová's experimental avant-garde methods of cinematic representation both compliment and encourage the film into the unconventional. By encompassing both of these methods, Daisies, stands for me as a dynamic film, reminiscent of the experimental formal expression of the early short surrealist films ((Len Lye // Hans Richter // Duchamp etc etc)) and the surrealist films carrying more of a narrative, such as Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (1943).
However, for me, Chytilová's Daisies narrative, instead of focusing on the individual within identity politics, it provides a much larger comment on society. While there is no denying that Daisies has obvious roots within the feminist genre, to name but one scene: where we see the girls cutting phallic shaped food with a pair of scissors.... Rather, I am proposing that the narrative shows a desire for rebellion within the suppressive and uniform regime, which was indicative of the political situation in Czechoslovakia at the time. Of course issues of gender politics are particuarly highlighted as this was made during the feminist second-wave movement (although I am not sure how Czechoslovakia fairs within the feminist movements per se), yet it certainly also positions itself within the general counter-culture rejection of traditional values, both within the narrative and experimental forms....
The surrealist and campy humour which Chytilová portrays is utterly infectious, and I can't wait to get my hands on another one of her works.....
For a more detailed reading of Věra Chytilová's films, follow this link;
http://www.kinoeye.org/02/08/radkiewicz08.php
Watch the trailer for the film here:
(apologies to those who don't speak Czech or Spanish, I could't find a clip with Eng subs... but you can still get the idea...)
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