Film / Daisies

How volatile life is!

Marie II: If everything's going bad...
Marie I: ...so...
Marie II: ...we're going...
Marie I: ...bad...
Marie II:...as...
Marie I: ...well!

— Marie I and Marie II's first dialogue

Daisies (Sedmikrásky in Czech) is a 1966 Czechoslovak dramedy directed by Věra Chytilová. It's generally regarded as one of the highest points for the Nová Vlna movement (the Czech New Wave). It follows two teenage girls (Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová), both named Marie, who refuse to play by the rules of the world they live in — since the world is bad, they decide they'll be bad too, and spend the rest of the film engaging in weird pranks and generally antisocial behaviour.

The film is famous for its unconventional filming, its surreal, psychedelic sequences and to be a bit of a Mind Screw.

It was filmed during a brief period of artistic liberalism before the Soviet invasion of 1968 which saw it banned for "depicting the wanton".

The movie is available in the Criterion Collection DVD boxset Pearls of the Czech New Wave.

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Daisies provides examples of:

• Art Shift: The film continually switches back and forth between black and white, color, and color-tinted scenes, often quite rapidly within a scene.
• Bait-and-Switch Credits: The opening credits have a World War II Scenery Gorn montage, which eventually cuts to two bored girls in bikinis. However, the girls' complaint about how the world has gone bad ties directly to the previous montage and their consequent actions are what drives the (un)plot.
• Big Eater: And how. Pretty much all the movie revolves around their excessive appetites and some Gluttony Montage.
• Compensated Dating: How the two Maries can afford to gobble such amount of haute cuisine and other fun stuff. Although they usually play pranks on their sugar daddies so they end up not enjoying at all their date.
• Costume Porn: The girls wear clothes from The '60s that would not look out of place in a Vogue photo shooting.
• Crapsack World: The world is bad and the girl know it, so they'll be bad too.
• Disney Acid Sequence: Too many to list, particularly when the trains are concerned.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The girls' obsession with cutting phallic food. Needs more explaining?
  • Their seemingly endless craving for food (with Erotic Eating, no less) has obvious sexual undertones.
• Erotic Eating: Put together a Ms. Fanservice and a Food Porn setting and the result is predictable. Although the girls' voracious appetite is a subversion - sometimes it's Erotic Eating, most of the time it's plainly Jabba Table Manners.
• Fan Disservice: Marie I and Marie II unapologetically smash every visual stereotype of femininity with their beautiful, cute and feminine appearance— while revelling in their gluttony and increasing antisocial behaviour.
• Fille Fatale: Marie I and Marie II are a twenty-something example as act they with a childishly mischievous attitude and engage in dates with much older men who are completely at their mercy.
• Food Porn: Exploited. The two girls spend most of the film ravenously eating as much food as they can stuff in their mouths. The infamous Food Fight sequence is a supreme example. Never watch this movie with an empty stomach.
• Food Fight: When Marie I and Marie II sneak in a lavish banquet presumably made for high-ranking leaders, they put up a food fight that destroys the entire room.
• Gainax Ending: The film ends with a giant chandelier crushing on them while they were cleaning the mess they've done, leaving ambiguous if they survived the incident.
• Girlish Pigtails: Marie I wears her hair in pigtails reminiscent of Brigitte Bardot, a popular hairstyle during The '60s.
• Gluttony Montage: An infamously long one. The protagonists order a shameless amount of food, which their sugar daddy has to pay for much to his chagrin. And folks, did they eat it.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: The girls' dynamics with their sugar daddies. Marie I goes on the dates, then Marie II shows up uninvited, orders a insane amount of food and asks the gentleman rude questions, while Marie II acts embarrassed but does nothing to stop her "sister".
• Jabba Table Manners: The girls unceremoniously eat anything they can stuff in their mouths and then some.
• Light Feminine Dark Feminine: Marie II, a redhead, wears light clothes and flowers in her hair, while Marie I, a dark-haired brunette, wears dark clothes and is the one who usually goes to dates with older men.
• Mind Screw: The whole movies is a surreal sequence of seemingly unimportant events. It's up to the viewer to interpret.
• Ms. Fanservice: One of the most memorable things of the movie is how ridiculously good-looking the protagonists are, in stark contrast with how they behave.
• Nipple and Dimed: Marie I covers her nipples with the framed butterflies of a love-struck collector.
• No Name Given: We learn that the two protagonists are both called Marie by Word of God, although they keep telling false names to other people.
• One-Word Title
• Scenery Censor: In the scene with the butterfly collector, Marie I covers her nipples and lady parts with his framed butterflies.
• Seamless Scenery:
  • The Maries are sitting around in bikinis in the opening scene. Marie I slaps Marie II, who falls over—and falls into a completely different scene, outdoors in a grassy field, wearing a dress. The film also shifts from black and white to color at that point.
  • Marie I is on the floor of a restaurant. Marie II stands up from a chair. Marie I grabs her calf and yanks, and Marie II slips back down—onto a bench in a women's restroom, where she starts putting on makeup.
• Surrealism: Throughout the whole film. In the first scene, a sort of creaking-door noise is heard on the soundtrack any time the girls move.,
• Tempting Apple: Apples appear often, and it's not a coincidence that after the girls declare to be bad since now, the film cuts to them dancing around an apple tree.
• Train-Station Goodbye: A parody of this trope. The protagonists keep sharing tearful goodbyes with the men they date, while actually looking forward to be freed from them.
• Trash the Set: The protagonists are fond of this, first they set their flat on fire, then destroy a lavish banquet with a Food Fight to the death.
• The Trickster: The film depicts the girls screwing with everyone they meet and even with each other.

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