Daisies (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

I like weird movies, so I enjoyed it. I know different people have different tastes. But for me I liked it.

great movie of corse but it came in terrible condition looks as if there was water damage somehow because the cover inside the plastic slip was warped try looking at your local barnes and nobel i saw it there after i ordered and it was a lot better condition in store

Perhaps because Vera Chytilova directed `Daisies' in 1966, at the start of the Prague Spring, that subsequent viewers scramble in a mad rush to label the film as a feminist outcry against the patriarchal hegemony organised along communist themes of repressive theocracy.Even without any prior knowledge of the historical context in which this film emanated, it works as a playful collage of surrealistic scenes which serve as an ironic lambast and a helping of satirical lashing against the entrenched consumerism and conventional normative of the day: a mad, bad, coming of age story embodying two young girls who decide that if the world is `so bad', then they will be too.How exactly is the world so bad, then? There is one very oblique reference to war in the very beginning of the film, but in general the themes which are propelled to the forefront and unpicked with gentle satire (well, and slapstick comedy, and cartoon animations, and lackadaisical fun-o-rama) focus on nihilism, hedonism, decay of moral values, ennui and lack of any productive and meaningful life goals. Rebelling against all this is perhaps the true definition of a `rebel without a cause', and perhaps there is never any `age' when disenchanted incumbents won't have a go at the moral depravity of their peers, as each generation discovers anew the hypocrisy and disinterment between society paying lip service to social values and the underlying reality which ensconces the exact opposite.So, Marie and Marie (our two protagonists), are going to be `bad'. But, not too bad: this isn't going to be the Czech version of `a Clockwork Orange' by any means. Bad here means taking unscrupulous old men for a ride: wizened insufferables who hope to score based on paying for a meal. Well, if eating their food and sending them on their way makes the two Maries bad, what in heavens name would they have done if they were `good': succumbed to the wily charms of the octogenarians? Uugh, it doesn't bear thinking.Being bad is defined twice more in the film: once as the girls get tipsy in a cabaret and stage an impromptu side show in their cubicle as they start jiving: (quelle horreur!) and once more at the finale when they descend upon a baquet hall and proceed to systematically destroy the food plateau, the room's fixtures and furnishing as well as the banqueting table and all the accoutrements on it. All this is done so playfully, gracefully, and sweetly that the viewers get swept up in the ride: we're not indignant at the wanton destruction as these two scamps wallop, we're enchanted: not least by the food fight and strip tease which culminate the scene.But what happens next, the true denouement and final scene of the film, is an ironic take of double entendre which demands kudos. The two Maries decide they are going to try and make amends having wreaked havoc with the food hall. Why they decide this, remains unclear: is it because polit bureau apparatchiks are whispering sweet somethings in Chytilova's ear? Is it because she wants one final stab at bohemian assertion? In any event, the two Maries are going to make good: they tell us so: `We shall be happy because we are good' they say. But in a tonal chorus set to a grating repetitive basso continuo which leaves the audience in no doubt that they mean the opposite. Dressed in newspaper rags (which would probably have Lady Gaga enthralled if she had seen it BEFORE the meat dress), they trip around setting the banquet to rights. But just like Humpty Dumpty, they are never going to be able to put this together again. `Does it matter?' asks Marie number 1. `No it doesn't matter' says Marie number two, and I can't help cheering them on.

A fascinating allegorical film wherein two young sisters as War commit bizarre, nonsensical and destructive acts against civilization. It's an Alice in Wonderland for the Age of Continual Warfare. On a literal level, it shows how the absurdity of war can result in decadence as nihilism becomes the zeitgeist. While being beautiful, experimental and funny, the film never abandons it's political message with an ending that emphasizes the difference between the girls' ultimately innocent acts and the heinousness of war.

Two pouty-lipped girls decide to act spoiled. They succeed.Sometimes visually creative and interesting but never compelling. Also rather food-obsessed.