Daisies

A landmark of the Czech New Wave, Daisies follows two young women who, upon concluding that the world is decadent, decide to plunge into their own chaos. Between exaggerated feasts, manipulation of men and a trail of minor sabotage, the film constructs a satire on bourgeois morality, gender norms and the very idea of ‘good behaviour’. Its anarchic energy also functions as a feminist gesture: the protagonists refuse to obey, please or be ‘well-behaved girls’, humorously exposing the absurdity of the expectations imposed on women. The rebelliousness of the hyperbolic characters, played by Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová, disconcerted the authorities of the time—to the point of limiting the film’s circulation.