The Favorites - Daisies (#40)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. Daisies (1966/Czechoslovakia/dir. Vera Chytilova) appeared at #40 on my original list.

What it is • Two girls named Marie (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová) cavort across a surreal cinematic landscape. I'm not sure how else to describe the setting - these are not the types of locations that are supposed to reflect an offscreen reality (nor do the characters seem to have any "backstory"). The tanning shacks, nightclubs, train stations, farms, and - most memorably - dining halls we visit don't exist in relation to one another, any more than a Western saloon and Gothic castle stacked side-by-side on a Hollywood soundstage. The Maries are a couple Sherlock, Jr.'s, leaping from film to film - or perhaps channel-surfers who have decided to wreak havoc on their favorite dating, fashion, and culinary reality shows. But even these useful comparisons are reductive, "explaining" what requires only immersion. The film toots along like a manic cut of punk pop and the best analogy might be to a loose, spontaneous early Looney Tune. Chytilova proves herself the long-lost distaff Slavic live-action twin of Tex Avery but the Czechoslovakian censors weren't laughing. They were desperately trying to squash the blossoming Prague Spring (one thinks of the Blue Meanies stomping every flower in sight, though the arrival of Soviet tanks in a couple years would put an end to such whimsical fancies). The authorities did not take this "lark" lightly in 1966, banning the film and reprimanding the fiery director. And indeed there is an undercurrent of darkness to the party onscreen, a vigorous anger undergirding the actions of Daisies' carefree apple-pluckers.

Why I like it •

The Colors of Daisies (video for Fandor Keyframe)

Near the end of March, I was finally able to create something I've been anticipating forever: a video essay on one of my favorite films, the anarchic Czechoslovakian masterpiece Daisies, by Vera Chytilova. If you've been following this blog for a while you probably know my affection for this movie. I have written a full-length review for my "Sunday Matinee" series, included it on my Favorites list (with the accompanying capsule entry coming up in a few months), devoted a visual tribute to its smorgasboard (with bonus images in the mix here), recommended it as part of my Hulu round-up, featured a clip in my "32 Days of Movies" series, and awarded it best editing and runner-up for best picture of '66 in my "alternate Oscars". In fact, Daisies marked my first semi-popular post on this blog back in 2008, when I proposed a set of double features (I paired Daisies with Pandora's Box) and topped the entry with a picture of one of the Marie's floating heads - which has since become my YouTube icon. Aside from Fire Walk With Me and Fists in the Pocket, Daisies is the most-featured title on this site. So yeah, I love this film!

Nonetheless I had no idea what approach I wanted to take for my video beforehand, and the whole thing came together very quickly. Seeking an organizing principle, I was reminded how dazzling and varied the color palette of this movie is. Looking for music to cut to, I randomly stumbled across Bow Wow Wow's "C30, C60, C90," which I didn't even realize I had on my computer. The cheerfully defiant pro-piracy lyrics and persona of singer Annabella Lwin were a perfect match for Chytilova's images. This is probably my shortest video (just about a minute) but it packs a lot in and bears re-watching. I'm pleased to see that by the time it was promoted a few weeks ago (Fandor had to wait in respect to the other filmmakers they were honoring each day of the month), it had already racked up a decent audience and received notice on Indiewire and FilmStage. If you haven't seen the film yet, please let this be your gateway.

Here is the description I wrote for Fandor Keyframe:

"When I saw Daisies for the first time, about a decade ago, I had never heard of the film, nor its director Vera Chytilova. So I entered blind, and received a dazzling, unexpected vision as my reward. There were so many things to adore about Daisies: the sociopathic charisma of its two heroines (helpfully dubbed Marie I and Marie II); the casual free association of the montage, leaping across time and space; the propulsive drive of the film, which carries the viewer through a virtually narrative-less 72 minutes on the sheer energy of its imagination. But if anything epitomizes Chytilova's fearless trapeze act, it's her use of color. Every shade in the spectrum appears in short succession, not only through props and costumes but via monochromatic filters that drench the whole screen in red, or blue, or purple.

After the movie was over, I felt as if I was drunk on color, so it's not surprising that my first video tribute to Daisies focuses on that element. "The Color of Daisies" is a quick, whimsical take on the kaleidoscopic texture of the film, organizing the shots by dominant color from lush green (perhaps the movie's most striking hue) back around the wheel to cool turquoise. It is scored by a pop song as energetic and playfully disruptive as the movie itself and the whole thing lasts only a minute, channeling the film's own sense of anarchic brevity. If you've yet to experience the movie yourself, hopefully this will encourage you, and if you have, the video can serve of a reminder of how masterfully Chytilova utilizes her palette moment-to-moment.

Like many Czechoslovakian films of its period, Daisies was immersed in controversy, a relic of the brief New Wave that climaxed with the Prague Spring in '68 and was crushed by Soviet tanks soon after. Daisies, however, was censored even before the crackdown (humorously, the only official charge the authorities lodged against it was that it wasted food, certainly an accurate accusation). Not only stodgy bureaucrats objected to the film - Jean-Luc Godard grumbled that it was "apolitical and cartoonish." That isn't fair (at least the first part; the film IS proudly cartoonish) but the film's rebellious ferocity is a matter of visceral sensation rather than cerebral contemplation. Fifty years old this year, Daisies remains iconic because its spirit is so deeply embedded in its style. Even a glimpse at its wonders assures us that Chytilova was a master."

Vera Chytilova, director of DAISIES & Annabella Lwin, lead singer of Bow Wow Wow

Images from the full spectrum follow the jump.

There's Something Happening Here... 1966 - 1968 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 17

The seventeenth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films
(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)

View "Chapter 17: There's Something Happening Here..."

There's Something Happening Here...

We begin exactly where we left off yesterday, actually a split-second earlier, repeating that gunfire as if reliving the Big Bang for one brief, unexpected moment. And then it's on to the future - a girl tosses an apple in the air, holds it in her hands, and takes a big forbidden bite. With that the world bursts into glorious color and catches fire. Today black-and-white starts to disappear: most of these clips are in color and from now on, just like that, color will be the default for every chapter. This is only the most obvious aspect of gigantic swerve.

The Sunday Matinee: Daisies

This is an entry in The Sunday Matinee series.

Daisies, Czechoslovakia, 1966, dir. Vera Chytilová, starring Ivana Karbanová, Jitka Cerhová

Story: Bored with their lives, two young girls (Marie and Marie) go on an anarchic and increasingly destructive spree of eating, drinking, partying, ridiculing conventions, while burning, cutting, or stealing every object in sight.

...Though I'm not sure I'd call it a "story."


Daisies opens and closes with images of war. The opening credits intercut the grinding mechanisms of wheels and cogs with shaky aerial footage of bombardments. The film ends suddenly with one last image of a (Vietnamese?) countryside being strafed, along with the slow-boiling, deadpan tribute of the filmmaker to her would-be censors: "This film is dedicated to those whose sole source of indignation is a messed-up trifle." The visual carnage is appropriate, for seemingly contradictory reasons. On the one hand, it gives a real-world analogue to the devilish destruction unfolding throughout the movie, and perhaps suggests that the aggressive but not physically violent behavior of its heroines could eventually lead in this deadlier direction - or at least that it's part of the same continuum, selfish decadence leading to bloody chaos. On the other hand, there's an apocalyptic tenor to the war footage, which contrasts sharply with the free-spirited bonhomie of our leading ladies - the suggestion is that this ugly world is what they're rebelling against. Seen this way they are the embodiment of the contemporary countercultural ethos, thumbing noses at conservative social forces be they masked as American imperialists or Stalinist bureaucrats.

And on yet another hand (anatomically incorrect perhaps, but in the spirit of a film which shatters all rules of propriety and perspective) the documentary authenticity of those fleeting shots casts a gloom over the completely and flagrantly fabricated playfulness of the protagonists, giving it an unreal and desperate air. So perhaps there is no direct relationship (either positive or negative) between the world's war and the girls' anarchy, but rather a tension unresolvable in their favor - this grim reality lends a certain fragility to their antics, justifying their aggression and threatening their larks with an air of impending doom. All of these interpretations are, of course, valid but ultimately interpretations are - if not beside the point - at least after the fact. This is a film to be experienced more than "understood" - a wild ride through colors, cuts, iconic images, jagged suggestions, lavish set pieces, roundabout dialogue, and alarmingly incessant and aggressive noises (the sound collage "score," mixing speedily-played classical compositions, random sound effects, and avant-garde atonal exercises, is as much a part of the experience as anything onscreen). It's a tale told by an imp, full of sound and fury, signifying everything.

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

A visual tribute to the banquet in Daisies (1966)

Happy Thanksgiving...

A dirty dozen

My 12 films: Some Came Running, God's Country, Paris Belongs to Us, Rosemary's Baby, Pandora's Box, Daisies, Scarface, Baby Face, Air Force, Yellow Submarine, Last of the Mohicans, Easy Rider

Do memes last more than a week? It's been eight days since Piper at Lazy Eye Theatre challenged bloggers to program 12 films at the New Beverly Cinema. Eight days in the blogosphere seems like an eternity but I'll go ahead and bite (not that anyone asked me to). The idea is to create a rep program of twelve films, in themed couplets (for example, Piper sticks High Fidelity with Punch Drunk Love as romantic comedies, and Song of the South with Coonskin as half-animated, racially controversial adaptations of Uncle Remus' tales). Some have chosen to give the entire program an overarching theme; hats off to them, but I found it hard enough deciding what to include and what to leave out.

My pairs are themed, but the overall program is not, save that they are all among my favorite films, ones I would love to share with an audience. I tried for diversity, and there are some classics, some more recent films (nothing from the past 15 years, though), all in different styles and genres. There are silents and talkies, black-and-white and color, animated and live-action, even documentary. Admittedly, all but three or four are American. And one persistent consistency proved impossible to overcome: fully half the films are from the 60s, my favorite cinematic decade. It's a testament to that era's richness that the list still feels diverse. Anyway, on to the explanations...