“Something should be happening. But what?” wonder two women named Marie (Marie I and Marie II, respectively) in “Daisies,” Věra Chytilová’s 1966 anarchic sendup of all things bourgeois and authoritarian. At the heart of the film lies the conclusion reached by Marie I and Marie II that the world is “spoiled,” henceforth, they too shall be “spoiled.” Almost immediately banned by authorities in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic upon release, ‘Daisies’ is as subversive in content as it is experimental in form, as it eschews linear narrative in favor of utilizing various film stocks and montage editing techniques to amplify its critique of authoritarianism and patriarchy. A new 4K restoration of the film is set to open later in the month.
‘Daisies,’ and the Czech New Wave as a whole, was a subversive cultural daydream before the rude awakening at the end of the Prague Spring in 1968. The Prague Spring, a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia that saw an ease on censorship, was crushed under the wheels of tanks at the end of the summer of 1968, as the country was invaded by hundreds of thousands of troops from the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries.
Though the film movement only lasted a handful of years, it burned brightly, providing audiences with classics to go alongside ‘Daisies,’ such as Jan Němec’s“A Report on the Party and its Guests,” Miloš Forman’s “The Fireman’s Ball,” and, Juraj Herz’s “The Cremator.” Like ‘Daisies,’ many of these films were experimental and underlined by a socio-political critique, a reflection of the era from which they were borne.
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‘Daisies’ is set to open at New York’s IFC Center on August 19. The following week, on August 26, it will open at Los Angeles’ Nuart Theater and Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center.