Meet Marie I and Marie II, the two unlikely protagonists of the absurdist, surreal film Daisies (1966). Directed by Věra Chytilová, Daisies isn’t just an experimental film that follows two young girls and their pranks, it’s a statement about society and an exploration of feminism and what it meant to be a Czechoslovak woman during the time in which it was filmed.
Daisies starts out with the duo in bathing suits talking wantonly about going through life doing nothing. And so, the film follows their adventures as they take nothing seriously; men, life, war, factories with decadent rooms inside, furniture; everything.
Daisies is a work of pop art in living color; the film flashes through black and white to striking vibrant hues. During their adventures, the two Maries go on dates with older men where they have epic feasts, they lounge about eating apples and pickles, they traipse around what they think are abandoned factories and have their own parties.
One of the most important motifs of the film is food, and the mesmerizing way in which the characters use it as well as what different foods symbolize. Daisies starts and ends with food, and the film literally sees its finale with an epigraph across the screen that reads, “dedicated to those who get upset only over a stomped-upon bed of lettuce”.
As intriguing as the food in Daisies are the outfits — the little sheer scarf that is used to transform into different personas, for example, or the end scene where both girls wear jumpsuits tied with twine made entirely of newspaper.
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