During the 1960s, there were several New Waves in film, starting in France and spreading to the U.S. and Japan. Filmmakers were pushing the boundaries of cinema, knocking down censorship and deconstructing the rules of cinema itself. But none of these were as radical as what filmmakers were doing in Czechoslovakia. There, despite a communist government and living behind the Iron Curtain, graduates of the film program at Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts sparked the Czech New Wave.
Exploring films from this movement should come as a complete shock to first-time viewers. The movies are the very definition of avant garde cinema, with their often disregard of narrative convention. Again, even under the eye of communism, these films thumb - even pick - their noses right in the faces of authority. One of the most famous films is Vĕra Chytilová’s Daisies, released in 1966, two years before the Prague Spring.
Despite running just 76 minutes, Daisies is a bizarre trip that feels much longer. It starts simply enough, with two girls - Maria I (Jitka Cerhová) and Maria II (Ivana Karbanová) - who decide to act spoiled. That’s it. For no rhyme or reason, the sisters who strangely have the same names, decide to wreak havoc wherever they go.
Chytilová came up with the story with Pavel Juráček and it doesn’t appear to have taken much thought. But you can tell that the director clearly put thought into every shot. She orchestrated complete mayhem and anarchy on film, with the two Marias torturing everyone and everything they come in contact with. There’s a sense that they only do this because they are bored. There just isn’t much for two young girls to do under communism than annoy an older man they date and ruin a feast for communist leaders.
But there isn’t just anarchy at the story level. Chytilová completely throws out the book when it comes to color, cutting and photography. Entire scenes are shown through color filters. Indeed, a whole conversation is cut up into colors, with each close-up getting a different color. She even throws in animation during train rides, turning the trains into flashes of color. It’s like she saw the “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” segment of Fantasia and decided to bring that to life.
Even sound itself is attacked. In the very first scene after the credits, the Marias’ joints sound like robots. Perhaps they are just robots gone awry or it’s just a statement on humanity itself under authoritarian rule. People are expected to behave like robots, but the Marias prove that there is no way to control a person as a ruler hopes.
While Chytilová shows the destruction that the Marias cause, it’s worth noting that she also makes them incredibly insignificant. At the beginning, military footage shows destruction during World War II and the Marias are (spoiler) crushed by a chandelier and killed by atomic bombs at the end. These girls are insignificant and “spoiled” to the point that the government crushes them. Even though what they did wasn’t that important.
“This film is dedicated to those who get upset over a stomped-upon bed of lettuce,” the text reads at the end. In other words, Chytilová’s film reminds us that it’s not worth crying over spilled milk, even if your glass was knocked over by two spoiled girls.
Daisies is available in Criterion’s Pearls of the Czech New Wave box set and on Hulu.