Daisies

Introduction by Irena Kovarova on May 27

“When everything is being spoiled…we’ll be spoiled too!” So proclaim two pixieish hell-raisers named Marie I and Marie II, whose radical nihilism leads them on a giddy, giggly, anything-goes pursuit of hedonistic pleasure, gustatory excess, and patriarchy-smashing destruction. Writ in a Dadaist flurry of psychedelic colors, mismatched film stocks, cutout collages, and cartoon sound effects, Vera Chytilova’s exuberantly experimental call to rebellion plays like a Laurel and Hardy romp filtered through the feminist and formalist sensibility of the ’60s avant-garde. Dedicated to “those who get upset only over a stomped-upon bed of lettuce,” the film was banned by authorities for, among other offenses, its unconscionable depiction of food wastage.