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Daisies, 1966
Marie (Jitka Cerhová) and Marie (Ivana Karbanová) are two young women who decide that if the world around them is rotten, they might as well be rotten. They wander between their apartment and different other locations, doing whatever they want and leaving a trail of destruction and offended parties in their wake.
This movie is a great example of how you can critique the patriarchy and also, just, you know, have like a good time with your bestie eating cakes and doing wild arts and crafts.
I'm sure there are plenty of people here who have seen the bit from Community where Annie does a "sexy" Christmas song and dance to a confused and uncomfortable Jeff as Annie's voice goes increasingly babyish as the sexiness is supposed to derive from the singer being young and stupid.
Whenever they are in public, the Maries push the "silly girl" trope to its absolute limits, with one of the most commonly used images from the film being one of the Maries playfully sucking on her thumb. It's interesting to watch the various sequences as the people around them--and especially the men who desire them--are willing to let the behavior slide up to a certain point. As Marie messily eats cake in a restaurant, or as the girls blow bubbles in a nightclub, tolerance begins to tip into annoyance.
It's a fun way to make a point about the results of infantilizing women, and question the expectations of what exactly people in groups that are infantilized are supposed to do about it. Something a friend said about a man she'd observed talking in a group: "He kept saying he wanted to find someone who was into soccer. But then he wouldn't even respond to [other woman who knows a lot about soccer]. What he really meant was he wanted someone who knew just enough about soccer that he could explain things to her." If being naive and childlike is a virtue, at what point does that become absurd? And what does it say about people who idolize the idea of someone's attractiveness depending on them being in a lower position of power/intelligence than them?
But beyond the social critique, this is just a very playful and fun film. There are all sorts of overt silliness happening in the way that the movie is made, from the use of sound effects to color filters clicking on and off, to the frame literally cutting itself into pieces when the two Maries go after each other with scissors. The women take the idea of childlike femininity to extremes, and so the film itself takes the idea of editing and other technical aspects to extremes.
The overall effect is pretty delightful. You never quite know what to expect next, and the movie makes fun use of switching between a desaturated look and vivid colors. I really liked the repeated use of a metronome-like clicking, something that's mimicked later in the film by the girls as they take advantage of an unattended banquet.
Very enjoyable.
Daisies, 1966
Marie (Jitka Cerhová) and Marie (Ivana Karbanová) are two young women who decide that if the world around them is rotten, they might as well be rotten. They wander between their apartment and different other locations, doing whatever they want and leaving a trail of destruction and offended parties in their wake.
This movie is a great example of how you can critique the patriarchy and also, just, you know, have like a good time with your bestie eating cakes and doing wild arts and crafts.
I'm sure there are plenty of people here who have seen the bit from Community where Annie does a "sexy" Christmas song and dance to a confused and uncomfortable Jeff as Annie's voice goes increasingly babyish as the sexiness is supposed to derive from the singer being young and stupid.
Whenever they are in public, the Maries push the "silly girl" trope to its absolute limits, with one of the most commonly used images from the film being one of the Maries playfully sucking on her thumb. It's interesting to watch the various sequences as the people around them--and especially the men who desire them--are willing to let the behavior slide up to a certain point. As Marie messily eats cake in a restaurant, or as the girls blow bubbles in a nightclub, tolerance begins to tip into annoyance.
It's a fun way to make a point about the results of infantilizing women, and question the expectations of what exactly people in groups that are infantilized are supposed to do about it. Something a friend said about a man she'd observed talking in a group: "He kept saying he wanted to find someone who was into soccer. But then he wouldn't even respond to [other woman who knows a lot about soccer]. What he really meant was he wanted someone who knew just enough about soccer that he could explain things to her." If being naive and childlike is a virtue, at what point does that become absurd? And what does it say about people who idolize the idea of someone's attractiveness depending on them being in a lower position of power/intelligence than them?
But beyond the social critique, this is just a very playful and fun film. There are all sorts of overt silliness happening in the way that the movie is made, from the use of sound effects to color filters clicking on and off, to the frame literally cutting itself into pieces when the two Maries go after each other with scissors. The women take the idea of childlike femininity to extremes, and so the film itself takes the idea of editing and other technical aspects to extremes.
The overall effect is pretty delightful. You never quite know what to expect next, and the movie makes fun use of switching between a desaturated look and vivid colors. I really liked the repeated use of a metronome-like clicking, something that's mimicked later in the film by the girls as they take advantage of an unattended banquet.
Very enjoyable.