Rent Daisies (1966)

Stick with it! - Daisies review by CP Customer

At first the level of whimsy threatens to be just too much, but do persevere, this is a film that gets better and better as it goes along.

The animated scenes are superb and are reminiscent of Jan Svankmajer at his best. The use of vivid colour is also brilliant.

Chytilova deserves to be much better known and this film is a landmark in feminist satire.

It does make one wonder what became of the two young actors who play the lead roles. They are clearly enjoying themselves immensely on set and their energy and harmless nihilism is very engaging.

Girls just Want to have Fun - Daisies review by griggs

Daisies is a visual feast—pure chaos in the best way. Two girls run wild, treating the world like it treats them—badly. They don't try to fix anything and just burn it all down with mischief and mayhem. Scamming meals, aggressively chopping up sausages while some guy whines on the phone, stuffing their faces with pickles and hard-boiled eggs with so much venom—it's all so much fun. Supposedly banned for depicting food wastage, but let's be honest, it probably just scared the party officials and the patriarchy.

Visually, Daisies is a riot of colour, texture, and daring experimentation. The scenes shift between dreamlike stills, rapid jump cuts, and changing colour palettes, turning everyday chaos into a hypnotic experience. The trippy train overlays feel like avant-garde art in motion. The film's form is in constant flux, jumping between slapstick, surrealism, and collage-like editing, keeping the viewer on edge. But what truly sets Daisies apart is its use of sound. Even silence is weaponized, with sudden bursts of sound creating an unpredictable atmosphere. Made two years before the Prague Spring, Daisies feels less like a film and more like a warning shot, an act of cinematic rebellion that still feels radical today.

Probably not worth the effort - Daisies review by NK

I don't hold with this idea of sticking with something (or someone) in the hope that I will find something worthwhile eventually. There's an old expression about first impressions and if you spend half an your in the company of someone whose antics are just tedious, annoying and unfunny, totally detached from any kind of story or plot or any reason to wonder what might be coming next, then it's probably not going to get any better. The film is of some historic interest, mainly because it was banned by the communist authorities - it would be interesting to know their reasons for doing so. Possibly it could have been because the censors didn't understand the film and just banned it to be on the safe side, in case it held a hidden message - old-school, Soviet-style authorities had plenty of form for that. However, communists could be progressive at times - to me it's possible that what they saw here was two scantily-clad, attractive young women being directed to cavort and act up and roll around on a bed together and generally just act like "naughty girls" for the gratification of some Eastern-bloc, Soviet era version of Harvey Weinstein. It's not my idea of empowerment - I gave up after about half an hour.