LES PETITES MARGUERITES
By : Vera Chytilova
With : Jitka Cerova , Ivana Karbanova , Julius Albert, Marie Ceskova et Jan Klusak
Rep. tchèque, 1966, PAL, 4/3 - 76 mn
zone 2, Couleur, mono
Not available for sale now
English title: DAISIES
Original title: SEDMIKRASKY
Directed by : Vera Chytilova
With : Jitka Cerova , Ivana Karbanova , Julius Albert, Marie Ceskova and Jan Klusak
Czech Republic, 1966, PAL, 4/3, 76 min
zone 2, color, mono
Original Czech version with French subtitles
Two teenage girls, both named Marie, decide that since the world is spoiled they will be spoiled as well; accordingly they embark on a series of destructive pranks in which they consume and destroy the world about them. This freewheeling, madcap feminist farce was immediately banned by the government.
DAISIES established Chytilova's international reputation and, while it won international critical acclaim (winning the Grand Prix at the International Film Festival in Bergamo, Italy), it was officially banned in her native country until 1967.
It's an amazing explosion of pop-art colors, absurd humor and proto-feminist politics.[...] Its plot, far removed from socialist realism, is less important than its giddying, disorientating fusillade of jump cuts and odd-some animation. This film incites radical fantasies and exults in the dream of a repressive social order being destroyed. It's a trip, a surreal manifesto, a joy to behold. (Sukhdev Sandhu, THE TELEGRAPH)
Bonus : Chaptering - restored master · "L'as" : review by Romain Le Vern (12 mn /2008)
Booklet : "Les métamorphoses de l'impertinence" , review by Paul-Louis Martin · "Le champ libre" : interview with Vera Chytilova by Michel Delahaye and Jacques Rivette (extracted from LES CAHIERS DU CINEMA)
Grand Prix at the Bergamo Film Festival in 1967
Watch a video excerpt :