Rent Daisies (1966)

Stick with it! - Daisies review by TE

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.

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.