Food fights and ‘Daisies’: rebelling against censorship
The explosive world of Czechoslovakian cinema. Art by Chloe Callow.
Věra Chytilová’s 1966 film
Daisies has stuck with me since I saw it at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2019. During the screening, a man in the theatre burped loudly and I was struck by the thought that perhaps he was a performance artist hired to comment on the film’s wonderfully grotesque dining scenes. If burping in a cinema was ever appropriate, it would be during
Daisies.
When I think of this film I think of excess. Orgasmic and explosive collages of flowers, metal, pinned butterflies, newspaper cuttings, and an overwhelming feeling of mischief. A film which celebrates gleeful social impropriety, feasting and making an awful mess;