Film Fatale: Daisies and Being a Hedonistic Woman

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10 Mar

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After these past few years of political hell and an even further decline in trust for our governments, the future can seem bleak. Bleak to the point that at times any type of optimism can feel ingenuine. You switch off the most disturbing BBC 6pm news you’ve ever seen and open up Instagram to an infographic naming 10 reasons why you’ve been a toxic friend during the pandemic. The shops are out of fresh food because this is Post -Brexit Britain, so you have the pack of Super Noodles at the back of your cupboard you’ve been saving for a rainy day. The only thing that can save the night is letting loose, and without being able to go outside you settle for the next best thing, watching a Czech New Wave classic.

Daisies (1966) directed by Věra Chytilová is for the girls. The girls who want to have fun. The girls who have reached their limit and want to do something silly. Spilling red wine down their vintage dresses and talking over men with spinach in their teeth. The rebellious nature of the film still resonates today, delving into excess and chaos in the name of optimistic nihilism. As the famous Albert Camus quote goes: ‘The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.’

The film follows two girls, both named Marie, running around town causing chaos. The two Marie’s (Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová) paint their eyes black, wear 60s mini dresses and engage in non-womanly activities. They surround themselves with an endless supply of food, from apples to luxurious cakes. They take bites and throw the rest aside, going on to the next with full intention of wasting away what they don’t immediately desire. They cut up pickles and eggs whilst they bathe in milk, not shying away from phallic symbolism. These acts got the film pulled from theatres by the Czech government for ‘depicting the wanton’, but the audiences and critics couldn’t get enough of it. It’s really no wonder the film was banned as they represent everything a 1960’s Czech woman shouldn’t be. They were poster girls for the repressed voices of the people with an itch for life, no diluting of desire or madness.

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

A film that holds up both stylistically and thematically after all these decades is impressive, but it means even more when it resonates. It feels special to watch a film like Daisies, within the first second you know you’re about to experience something important and memorable. Any film which features messy and imperfect women will find me in the audience, and well as a hoard of others who are tired of seeing an altered and untrue version of a woman crafted by the mind of a man. Personally, I don’t mind if the character is necessarily ‘good’ or ‘bad’, I just want to see flaws, chaos and feeling that has been overlooked by the hyper fixation of making the on-screen lady ‘fuckable’. Marie and Marie are this. They are both a mess. They set fire to their apartment, trick old men out of free dinners, steal, trespass, and drink and drink and drink. Their rampant hedonism is inspirational for any young person who gazes into their future and sees nothing but a slow growing black hole.

“The film was considered relatable in 2014, but now I feel like it’s at another level of She’s Just Like Me: restless, let down but with the undying urge to keep going.”

Marie and Marie state phrases to each other in the midst of their absurd adventures, ‘We are young and life is long’, ‘We exist, we exist, we exist’, ‘Everything is going bad in this world’. It seems like they’re completely alone in their recognition of the crumbling world around them. They taunt the happy couples and ruin their night and stare at the beautiful, put together woman that enters the bathroom. It’s their job to remind the people around them how easy it is to create a disruption when everything around them is put together in a thought out and specific way.

Introduced to the young adults of today through relatable Tumblr gifs but leaving us with a radical feeling to leave our rooms and go ‘bad’, the internet gleefully resurged this film to a new generation of cult film lovers. The film was considered relatable in 2014, but now I feel like it’s at another level of She’s Just Like Me: restless, let down but with the undying urge to keep going.