The Pretty Colors of "Daisies"

"Daisies" is a 1966 surrealist, avant-garde Czechoslovakian film. Now don't panic. Running a brief 74 minutes, "Daisies" is an invigorating, plot-free romp, following a pair of "spoiled" young women as they engage in escalating episodes of bad behavior. Perhaps the girls' adventures have political or sociological messages embedded in them, as the opening images of WWII bombings and industrial machinery seem to suggest. Perhaps, the film is to be interpreted as some kind of early feminist statement, as it was directed by a woman, Věra Chytilová, and features two primary female characters, Jarmila and Jezinka (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová), doing all kinds of socially unacceptable things. I'm afraid I simply don't have enough context to make those kinds of claims.

What I can say is that "Daisies" is a remarkable experimental narrative. Jarmila and Jezinka, one blonde and one brunette, are a carefree pair, more archetypes than proper characters. At the beginning of the film, while sunbathing together, they decide to be "spoiled," and proceed to spend the next hour acting like the most nightmarish pair of manic pixie dreamgirls ever filmed. Their antics range from childish, disruptive behavior in inappropriate settings, to taking blatant advantage of much older male suitors in a succession of dates, to a gloriously silly and horrifying climax where the girls destroy an extravagant banquet. Jarmila and Jezinka are a greedy and capricious pair, constantly gorging themselves with food, systematically destroying the apartment they share, and indulging whatever nonsensical ideas pop into their heads.

And yet they are such appealing comic figures, with their high energy and sweet faces. Made up to look like a pair of overgrown children, one always in pigtails and the other wearing a flower wreath, it's easy to dismiss their early escapades as harmless youthful frolic. We root for them when they maneuver their way out of the arms of a would-be sugar daddy through a slapstick routine with a train. On the one hand, they may be immoral and irresponsible, and on the other they may be innocents at play. One segment has the two girls taking turns rolling each other up in layers of blankets. In another they have fun with a pair of scissors, and playfully shear each other's limbs off like paper dolls, before their bodies are magically restored in the next sequence.

This is a surrealist film, remember, and neither the narrative nor the filmmaking follows any rational logic. Sometimes we see flashes of Stan Brakhage-like film collages of butterflies or trains or phone numbers. The cinematography will switch from black and white to color to a succession of different hued filters, seemingly at random. Occasionally, the film is sped up to emphasize the girls' hyperactivity. (Even without the film being sped up, the performances of Karbanová and Cerhová often border on the manic, and certain scenes must have been exhausting to shoot) . Typed up captions interject themselves to comment on the action, especially toward the end when the symbolism becomes more pointed. Through it all, Chytilová visuals are a constant delight, a riot of playful, topsy-turvy iconography drawn from the girls' lives of frivolity. There is a special emphasis on getting made up, changing clothes, flirting rituals, and other girlish amusements that have some sinister implications.

When the film was released, the Communist Czech authorities took affront to the depictions of the girls' excesses, including all the ruined food in the banquet scene, and banned it until 1975. The director argued that "Daisies" was meant to be critical of such behavior, and was not anti-Communist. Perhaps this was truly her intent, but "Daisies" seems to contain considerably broader messages than that. Through modern eyes, I can't help comparing Jarmila and Jezinka to similarly "spoiled" reality starlets, petted and indulged and encouraged to behave badly for the audience's enjoyment. And it's a good reminder of how youth and innocence are more fetishized and exploited by the media than ever. I've lost count of the number of teen idols and Disney Channel veterans we've seen self-destruct over the years in similar fashion.

Of course I may be completely off base here. I'm not very good with abstract and avant-garde cinema, since I'm never sure if I'm properly decoding the symbols being presented, or if a cigar is just a cigar. However, I enjoyed "Daisies" and I found it very engaging. It had me happily puzzling over its intentions and searching for potential meanings in a way that very few of these films have managed.
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