DAISIES

Czechoslovakia, 1965. Two drop-outs with a keen sense of life’s pleasures and both answering to the name Marie decide to pay back in kind a society that is trampling its own ideals underfoot. Marie 1 and Marie 2 believe the only way to react to a world they view as corrupt is to beat it at its own game. And so they do exactly as they please. Věra Chytilová came to international notice with this grotesquely anarchistic comedy, which made a timely appearance in the middle of the “Prague Spring”. As a manifesto in favour of freedom of individual development and against any form of stuffy narrow-mindedness, the film was banned in the ČSSR almost instantly.