A Critique of Chytilová’s ‘Daisies’
Embracing absurdity carries a multitude of embedded metaphors throughout Věra Chytilová’s 1966 film Daisies. There are seemingly a handful of themes and critiques throughout this avant garde film. While it is not entirely clear what message the Czech director intended to depict in her film, there are a handful of potential themes that are open for interpretation, including: issues with the Czechoslovak government and food shortages, commenting on the fashion and modeling industries, using experimental methods of film making, examining the roles women play in society and the standards to which they are held, and highlighting feminist critique. Further investigating one of these topics, Bliss C. Lim argues that there is a subversive feminist critique in Chytilová’s Daisies, which is highlighted through the director’s intentional use of the ‘doll’, food, fashion, filmmaking techniques, colors, and words.
Two young women play the main characters in Daisies. Both of the females are called “Marie”, one being strawberry blonde (let us call her Marie I), and the other a brunette (Marie II). During the opening scene of the film, Marie I describes herself as a doll while she moves mechanically as if she physically is a puppet.. Soon after, Marie II says “Everything is being spoiled in this world”. After choppy and playful banter, the two girls decide that if everything is spoiled, then they shall be too. This self declaration of embodying a ‘doll’ sets the tone for the vapid, childlike, rambunctious, and insipid behavior that is portrayed by the protagonists throughout the film.
The doll symbol can be interpreted as denouncing or celebrating the protagonists. Due to the abstract and non-linear format of the film, it seems that Chytilová intended for this absurd and caricatured behavior to be a metaphor for feminist allegory. Throughout the film, the two Maries repeated a cycle of preparing themselves with certain clothing choices and make-up to middle-aged and elderly men into buying them fancy meals and drinks, with the unspoken promise that they would then leave with the men. Every time the girls would board the train with a man, they would trick their suitor and hop off the moving car, succeeding in their gluttonous goals. During their paid-for meals, the Maries eat without any manners or self control - the girls devour food with their hands, stuff their faces full, gulp their drinks, make a scene, soil their hands and even clothes.
Although the girls’ hyper-feminine outfits - reminiscent of the infamous 60’s Twiggy silhouette, heavy use of make-up, and accessorizing with a flower crown and a sheer scarf visually depict the idealized version of what a woman should be, their impish and rowdy behavior pushes the boundaries for females taking up space. There are a lot of contradictions regarding depicting the ideal woman (as a “doll’) versus how the girls actually behave in public and in private. During one of the girls’ dinners with an older man, Marie I exclaims that Marie II is afraid to get fat, as she devours the gluttonous food in front of her. It is clear that during this specific dinner that Marie II is more ‘lady-like’ and eats her food daintily and seductively while her counterpart keeps ordering food from the waiter and shamelessly eats using her hands and fingers, making a mess and a scene. This is the only instance during the film that one of the girls ate in a manner that held up to society’s expectations of a woman’s behavior.
Food plays a large role in Daisies, serving as a strategic symbol for feminism. As the Maries spoil themselves with food and drink by deceiving these middle-aged and older men, they are both embodying the mindset of a man - the Maries are not living in a man’s world, they are the man’s world. Sitting at the dinner table dressed to impress, the women take up more space than the men, only to make them pay for their meals and beverages, and then leave them hanging high and dry as they leave them on a train to say goodbye forever. Instead of the women pining after the men, constantly calling and chasing after men for their approval, the girls are constantly being chased and called by these men that are obsessed with them. Towards the end of the film, the girls lay on their bed, cutting sausages and eating the meat, then cutting paper and eating that too. On the walls of their room are thousands of phone numbers. A man keeps buzzing into the apartment begging Marie I to let him in because he loves her. The girls seem to be unfazed by any of the male attention on an emotional level, and are more focused on their hunger and boredom. The disinterested and emotionally removed behaviors that the Maries display mirrors a stereotypically male way of acting.
Chytilová cleverly masks this behavior with the girly appearances and wardrobes of the girls as well as portraying them as doll-like figures. Besides their clothes and make-up, the girls could be described as piggish or slobs. As the film goes on, the bedroom that the Maries reside becomes more and more filthy and cut-up. The bed becomes a place for the girls to reset before they go on their next adventure of trickery and deceit. However, the girls begin to become more and more bored as time goes on, and begin to eat more and more in their bed, making an absolute mess.
The scene where the Maries begin cutting food with scissors and then each other is a truly fascinating moment of Chytilová’s direction. The collaging of the girls’ bodies, the use of kaleidoscopic editing, bold color choices, and butterflies/moths is a mesmerizing and powerful climax of Daisies. This abstract and manic moment in the film beautifully represents the sporadic behavior of the Maries as well as the way that they are literally and figuratively taking bits and pieces of themselves and of the men that they trick in order to be spoiled and live this careless and gluttonous life. The lives of the protagonists are choppy and nonlinear, but the piecing together of their actions and choices is similar to that of collage.
As a painter and drawer that uses collage as a method to make work on a regular basis, I find this film to be incredibly fascinating. I had not previously thought about the potential connotations behind collage, but now understand that there can be quite a few metaphors in conjunction with this method of making art. Chytilová was not only experimental and artistically minded when creating this film, but also strategically placed feminist imagery and metaphor for it to not be too obvious or one-sided. A beautiful aspect of Daisies is that the film resists easy or clear interpretation. There is no stated or glaringly noticeable side that Chytilová takes in the film. The messages behind the film will be read depending on the viewer and their own lived experience, making this film similar to a painting.