Daisies (film)

Daisies
Theatrical poster
Directed by Věra Chytilová
Produced by Rudolf Hájek
Screenplay by Věra Chytilová
Ester Krumbachová
Pavel Juráček
Story by Věra Chytilová
Starring Jitka Cerhová
Ivana Karbanová
Marie Češková
Jiřina Myšková
Marcela Březinová
Julius Albert
Music by Jiří Šlitr
Jiří Šust
Cinematography Jaroslav Kučera
Edited by Miroslav Hájek
Distributed by Ustredni Pujcovna Filmu (ukraine)
Sigma III, Corp. (US)
Release date
  • 30 December 1966 (1966-12-30) (Czechoslovakia)
  • 25 October 1967 (1967-10-25) (US)
Running time
 76 minutes[1]
Country Czechoslovakia
Language Czech

Daisies (Czech: Sedmikrásky) is a 1966 Czechoslovak comedy-drama film written and directed by Věra Chytilová. Generally regarded as a milestone of the Nová Vlna movement, it was made with the support of a state-sponsored film studio and follows two teenage girls (played by Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová), both named Marie, who engage in strange pranks.

Innovatively filmed, and released two years before the Prague Spring, the film was labeled as "depicting the wanton" by the Czech authorities and banned. Director Chytilová was forbidden to work in her homeland until 1975. The film received the prestigious Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association.

Plot

The opening sequence is that of a spinning flywheel with shots of airplanes strafing the ground. The shots of the airplanes are from US Navy footage shot in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. The first scene shows the two main characters sitting in bathing suits. Their conversation is robotic and from that point on they decide to be bad. The next scene shows Marie I and Marie II dancing in front of a tree. The tree has many fruits and resembles the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Once Marie I eats from the tree, they both fall and appear in their apartment. There is significant action here, with Marie I looking through the window at a parade and Marie II eating. The next few scenes are all similar. They show the two girls on a date with an older man, a "sugar daddy". Marie II eats voraciously and Marie I eventually starts acting like her, eating a lot of food.

The girls eventually go to a nightclub with 1920s-style dancers and cause a ruckus. Marie II also goes to the apartment of a man who is a butterfly collector. In this scene, there are a lot of butterflies shown as still frames. At the end, she says that she wants to eat. Later on, they go to a factory. There are still frames of locks, and the building looks run down. They look for "nourishment" and stumble upon a feast presumably set out for communist leaders. They eat the food, make a mess and destroy the room. It then cuts to them being dunked in water like witches, as the director states how there can be no "clean resolution" to the destructive dinner. Věra Chytilová then brings the Maries back to the dining room, and make everything right again, and at the end a giant chandelier crushes them.

Cast

  • Jitka Cerhová as Marie I
  • Ivana Karbanová as Marie II
  • Marie Češková
  • Jiřina Myšková
  • Marcela Březinová
  • Julius Albert as Man About Town
  • Dr. Oldrich Hora
  • Jan Klusák
  • Josef Konicek
  • Jaromír Vomácka
  • V. Mysková

References

  1. ↑ "DAISIES (A)". British Board of Film Classification. 1967-12-19. Retrieved 2013-03-11.
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