Very well executed

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

An avant-garde think piece from the late Mrs. Vera Chytilová (1929-2014), a spearhead figure emerges from Czech New Wave in the 60s, and keeps working consistently and domestically until her late age, DAISIES is her second feature with an economic length of 76 minutes, perhaps still remains as her most well-known work in her filmography.A whimsical, outlandish and provocative escapade about two young girls, both named Marie, Marie I (Cerhová), is a black-haired, Bardot-ish seducer and Maire II (Karbanová) is a blonde gamine, devilishly chic. Introduced by a robotic conversation between them, they decide to conduct a decadent lifestyle since the world has sunk to corruption and debauchery.Under Chytilová's unorthodox enforcement of cinematic tricks, the shots are immensely hyperactive, montages-laden with unexpected color-variations, fluidity and image-composition, and the two girls' follies become ever-enchanting, as audience's attention jumps from one scenario to another, they indulge in fine food and let some wealthy man-about-towns pay the bill, then swindle them to board the train on the pretence of going away with them before backtracking in the last minute (it works both ways, they leave with the train while the patron unfortunately misses the train). Occasionally, they snitch money and disturb a pas de deux in a club, revel in their own frolic bravado before being dragging out by the guard.When they are alone in their apartment, food and playfulness continues to running rampant, young suitors' romantic courtships cannot compete with a luxurious milk bath garnished with some raw eggs. A fantastic sleight of hand stuns when they shear each other to smithereens then the fragments being re-arranged into a knowingly comical presence like a misplaced puzzle. Their insatiable gluttony will reach the zenith in the sumptuous episode, where they single-handedly wreak havoc on a lavish banquet, an unapologetic manifesto to ram home epicurism to its dumbfounded spectators.In the coda, the two girls are granted a second chance to redeem their wanton acts, but Chytilová will not risk anything to foil her mischievously nonconformist endeavour. In one word, DAISIES' enduring allure lies in its radical Dadaism style and Chytilová's full liberation of her whimsy and artisan-ship. A fine piece of art can evince a wonderful change from the offerings of cinema's conventional product line, as it manifests in the end, the film is dedicated to those whose spiritual life has descended into completely chaos.

I will add my voice to Writers_reign and Jason Forestein so that they will not lone voices in the wind.I was expecting better things from this movie since Eclipse has doubled it with The Party and the Guests. This is a thoughtful allegorical critique of how Socialism / Communism has worked in practice instead of how it was supposed to have worked in theory. I now realise the only reason for doing this is because both films are part of the so called Czech New Wave and were short enough to fit onto a single DVD. Where as Party and Guests had a structure and message behind it, Dasies has minimal content and very little to recommend it.I think it is time to burst a few conception bubbles contained in some of the comments here.Firstly, this is not a feminist movie, it is an anti-men film. There is a very big difference. Shame on the men who didn't realise this.Nor is it Anarchy as some people have claimed. Anarchy is a number of people working together to achieve a common objective without the need for an umbrella stricture of administrators to tell them what to do. They know what is required and get on with doing it by themselves. What people usually mean when they use the word Anarchy is chaos. Again there is a very big difference.So far as the cinematography goes, changing colour filters many times mid scene and changing costumes halfway through a kiss is not artistic but the director trying hard to be arty and not pulling it off.As for the period when the film was made. After Stalinism, albeit at a distance, had been lifted, the director did not know what to do with her new found freedom and went around like the angry cavalier who rode off furiously in all directions. Or even more like the proverbial dog with two dicks. A flurry of activity finished up producing something that was sterile. "People don't like freedom, they don't know what to do with it." Those interested enough should see my Satantango review for an explanation of this quote.It seems to me the destructive element of the main characters derived from boredom associated with the minimal real content or purpose in their lives and there is nothing for viewers of the film to respect in this.All in all, this was a very disappointing effort. I can count this amongst the ten most irrelevant films I have seen and it scores only one point from me.

A great little film. Clearly stacked with dadaist and political significance, it is above all a most enjoyable movie. Absolutely impossible to watch without a smile. Not really any particular narrative, it bubbles about here and there, always looking ravishing with our two heroines skipping gaily, hither and thither and culminates in a veritable orgy of food. A banquet, is set up, we assume for some communist party dignitaries. At first the girls are in awe, then toy with it, then play with it, then fight with it and in probably the hardest to watch sequences, make as if to put it all back together again. Certainly an angry film but made with such delight and vigour that it is simply irresistible. Also, although obviously of its time, there are many instances of resonance with today. In one minor moment one of the girls removes her dress and pulls her half slip up over her bra leaving her with a very short semi transparent dress, I see today in the streets of London.

Director Vera Chytilova's anarchic feminist film from the mid 1960s (right before the Czech new wave movement was broken by the Soviet Invasion that ended the Prague Spring) is hard to describe in terms of plot. Basically, it's about the various antics and gags of two young women. The victims of their practical jokes tend to be established society in general (which exists even in a socialist system as was Czechoslovakia at the time), and older men in particular. Aggressively experimental, the movie uses several types of film stocks, even in a single scene, as well as in your face editing cuts. There are several anti-phallic gags (with the girls cutting while giggling sausages, bananas, etc.) as well as an apocalyptic food fight (the girls seem to have a particular obsession with food). It's fun, imaginative, subversive, but even at a running time of less than half an hour, tiresome at times.