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Julius Albert, Jitka Cerhova, Ivana Karbanova

An exercise in avant-garde cinema that is freshly humorous and accessible, Daisies is a dark comedy that eschews a traditional narrative for a Dadaist construction of events. Perpetually dressed in vi... read more read more...brantly corresponding costumes and dark black eyeliner, Marie and Marie work together to create mischief. Seeing the world ruined and values worthless, they decide to "go bad." They stage various dinner dates with stale old men, eat and drink merrily while telling lies, and, in a fast-motion Chaplinesque bit of slapstick, they hop trains and lose the men. Always looking for new adventures, the girls get drunk at a nightclub and get kicked out in a grand physical comedy style. They sit around their apartment and destroy things with a deadpan whimsy, apathetic to the men professing their love. Pursuing adventure about town, the two Maries take a dumbwaiter up to a banquet hall and proceed to delightfully demolish it. Using both black-and-white and color film stock, the girls' antics are enhanced by innovative special effects and camera tricks by cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera. Historically a key film in the Czech New Wave movement, Daisies was banned and director Vera Chytilová was forbidden to work until 1975. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

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83% liked it

2,846 ratings

Unrated, 1 hr. 14 min.

Directed by: Vera Chytilová

Release Date: January 1, 1966

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DVD Release Date: March 8, 2005

Stats: 184 reviews

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Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová Daisies (Sedmikrasky) Daisies (Sedmikrasky) Ivana Karbanová as Marie II Jitka Cerhová as Marie i Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová Daisies (Sedmikrasky) Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová Daisies (Sedmikrasky) die! die! die! lovely you
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Flixster Reviews (184)

  • bottcorecords1
    March 29, 2012
    bottcorecords1
    Made in 1966 Czechoslovakia, director Vera Chytilová's surrealist "Daisies" was banned by the Czechoslovakian government soon after it's release. Not that it was so unusual for the soviet Czech government to ban films, but looking back now, it's hard to understand what their spe... read morecific beef was. Granted, there are no overt proletarian ovations to be found here, but nor is it some sort of secret capitalist conspiracy. Inspired by the French new wave, it could most closely be considered some sort of nihilistic farce, but even that might be too specific a classification for a film so mysteriously vague.

    Daisies defies categorization as such. It seems to stem directly from the id of it's director, who doesn't so much explain things as she does allow them to happen. As abstract as whatever the story might be, the filmmaking process is hyper-detailed. Scenes of apparent little consequence are crafted with such fine attention to the miniscule minutiae of background scenery. It could almost be considered obsessive-compulsive the amount of effort put into the "fine print" details. The film arbitrarily switches from black-and-white to various "strip" shades of color; images are filmed through various lenses, in effect, demonstrating great proficiency in the technological art of film craft. It would be almost impossible to deny there is an art to the madness happening on the screen.

    But what of the "story"? Well, two bored girls eat a lot, then pursue various older men for the purpose of somehow toying with their hearts. They sometimes go to visit a motherly figure who lives in a woman's public restroom and sings all her dialogue to them about how lovely and young they are. Finally, they stumble upon a large, empty banquet room where a feast has been laid out and is unattended. They help themselves to the food and destroy everything in the process. "Why", you ask? I cannot say with any certainty. This is a film of the subconscious, there's no rhyme or reason, save whatever the filmmaker was feeling at the time. It's up to the individual viewer to determine what the film actually means. All I can say with certainty is, the film gives us a look into the gently mischievous moments of youth.
  • rubystevens
    February 1, 2012
    rubystevens
    terrific, subversive, anarchic and bold
  • LoughnerWasLucid
    June 12, 2011
    LoughnerWasLucid
    Banned? for what? filming an Adam Sandler premise in strange colors and showing young girls drinking wine?
  • jennifxu
    May 2, 2011
    jennifxu
    What a weird, surreal, avant-garde, trippy, cool kind of movie! Though I definitely wouldn't watch it again, I love how aged yet neo age it is!
  • ajv2688
    December 11, 2010
    ajv2688
    I didn't get to see the entire movie, I don't think, but what I saw was overly experimental and artsy. If you like that kind of movie, then you'll like this, if not don't watch it. I didn't care for it.
  • fb1142797643
    March 29, 2011
    fb1142797643
    This absurdist romp is a sensuous delight, even if it doesn't add up to much. Two sexy, 20-ish girls decide the world is going bad, so they might as well go bad too. To that end, they run around pulling pranks, teasing men, playing with food, taunting each other and generally act... read moreing like bratty, self-involved children. Um, yeah. That's about it. But the thin plot is not what's important -- the lure is in the filmmaking. Whimsical editing and brilliant use of color, including an odd fascination with archaic tinting, are what really sell the film. Despite the misleading poster, Daisies really doesn't come off as "psychedelic," but it does capture the freewheeling spirit of '60s youth. Enjoy!
  • bottcorecords
    March 29, 2012
    bottcorecords
    Made in 1966 Czechoslovakia, director Vera Chytilová's surrealist "Daisies" was banned by the Czechoslovakian government soon after it's release. Not that it was so unusual for the soviet Czech government to ban films, but looking back now, it's hard to understand what their sp... read moreecific beef was. Granted, there are no overt proletarian ovations to be found here, but nor is it some sort of secret capitalist conspiracy. Inspired by the French new wave, it could most closely be considered some sort of nihilistic farce, but even that might be too specific a classification for a film so mysteriously vague.

    Daisies defies categorization as such. It seems to stem directly from the id of it's director, who doesn't so much explain things as she does allow them to happen. As abstract as whatever the story might be, the filmmaking process is hyper-detailed. Scenes of apparent little consequence are crafted with such fine attention to the miniscule minutiae of background scenery. It could almost be considered obsessive-compulsive the amount of effort put into the "fine print" details. The film arbitrarily switches from black-and-white to various "strip" shades of color; images are filmed through various lenses, in effect, demonstrating great proficiency in the technological art of film craft. It would be almost impossible to deny there is an art to the madness happening on the screen.

    But what of the "story"? Well, two bored girls eat a lot, then pursue various older men for the purpose of somehow toying with their hearts. They sometimes go to visit a motherly figure who lives in a woman's public restroom and sings all her dialogue to them about how lovely and young they are. Finally, they stumble upon a large, empty banquet room where a feast has been laid out and is unattended. They help themselves to the food and destroy everything in the process. "Why", you ask? I cannot say with any certainty. This is a film of the subconscious, there's no rhyme or reason, save whatever the filmmaker was feeling at the time. It's up to the individual viewer to determine what the film actually means. All I can say with certainty is, the film gives us a look into the gently mischievous moments of youth.
  • HuskersNC949597
    February 11, 2012
    HuskersNC949597
    It's OK, I guess. Not sure what the feminist aspect is here, they're just behaving like the Real Housewives of some vaguely European nation, except their single never dropped.
  • egyptiansushi
    March 13, 2010
    egyptiansushi
    In Daisies (Sedmikrásky; dir. V?ra Chytilová, 1966), corruption is immediately recognized as the general state of the world. After showing real-world images of violence and destruction, the two Marias (Ivana Karbanová, blonde, and Jitka Cerhová, brunette) discuss how they should ... read morereact to what these images of violence represent: the decline of society.
    Blonde Maria notes how easy it is for her to appear ?like a virgin? and suggests that appearing like one is good enough to actually, for all intents and purposes, be one. This uncovers one of the problems that led to the so-called ?terrible state of the world? as expressed in the film?that everyone can disguise any part of themselves that they want, and they will only be that disguised form to others. That is to say, people are too free to ?be what they want,? even if it means hiding something ?bad? about themselves. We have no way of knowing how bad people (or governments!) truly are.
    As a kind of service to the world, though, the Marias decide together to not hide their badness, and to instead be as outwardly rude as they want. Some of the things they do are relatively harmless pranks: leading on married men and annoying them away or ditching them on a train, drinking too much at a club, and taking the attention away from the performers there. Soon, though, their actions are more agreeably evil: starting with stealing money from a person they know and are friendly with.
    In the longest (and near-final) scene of the film, the Marias raze a banquet hall and all the food inside of it. The attention to each step of the destruction?from just picking at the food to entirely destroying it by stepping on it and breaking the plates?is relatable to the many steps it surely took for the ?state of the world? to get as bad as it has according to the film. The world did not fall apart all at once?it took a series of worse and worse actions to grow to its current condition.
    Once the entire banquet hall is ruined, the Marias realize the error of their ways and superficially try to fix the hall back to its previous condition, but it is too late. Despite their efforts to fix the problems they caused, they did not succeed in doing so, which resulted in their ultimate demise. The chandelier would not have been loose had they not swung on it earlier in a moment of chaos, and would not have fallen on them. The movie finishes with more videos of violence (like in the beginning of the film), showing that there was corruption before the events of Daisies and there continues to be the same problems after. Even the perpetrators of the evils?the Marias in the film, or the entirety of society in the real world?cannot fix them in such a way that it will restore the world to a problem-less state.
    It is through corruption that the Marias find the most joy in living, and when they begin to try to change their ways, they do not succeed and finally probably die. So, does the film mean to say that we are hopeless against fighting evil and we should just do what we want? The dedication written in the end of the film, "THIS FILM IS DEDICATED TO THOSE WHO BECOME AGGRAVTED ONLY OVER TRAMPLED SALAD," is mocking people who are offended over trivial things such as one of the ?evil? acts that the Marias perform?walking on food. If people who are ?aggravated? over trivial things are mocked, then perhaps we should all take the ?evils of the world? a little less seriously and live and let live.
  • jes25924
    June 27, 2008
    jes25924
    One of the most vibrant and fun art house films you are ever likely to see. Vera Chytilova was merging feminism, nihilism, psychedlic color filters, collage aesthetic, and silent film slapstick into a one of a kind film about two young girls named Ma...(read more)rie who decide t... read moreo self destruct, and be just as wicked as the world. They con men into buying them lunch and ditch them at train stations, get drunk in posh nightclubs, set their beds on fire, and lay siege to whole banquets(this latter bit got the film and the director into alot of trouble with the Soviet Czech government for "wasting food"). Anyway this is an energetic and vibrant film as youre likely to find anywhere, and unlike so many great euro art films, this is as fun to watch as it is think about afterwards. Ive shown this movie to alot of people and Ive never had a complaint, it clocks in at just over an hour, so if youve got the time, go for it. It's a one of kind experience(in fact the worst part of this movie is the cover).

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Critic Reviews

Dennis Schwartz
November 4, 2008
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Seems to drag and become tiresome and overlong even at only 74 minutes. Full Review

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