Film: A Feminist Classic That Has Its Cake and Eats It Too

Film & Documentary

September 8, 2022 • View in browser

A Feminist Film Classic That Has Its Cake and Eats It Too

With its recent 4k restoration, Daisies endures as a New Wave masterpiece and hyper-feminine smorgasbord of sensory pleasure. | Eileen G'Sell

Rejecting both linear narrative and social realism, Daisies deflowers staid notions of Soviet-era filmmaking just as it giddily subverts the notion that a movie about giggly teenage girls cannot be serious. No matter Chytilová’s claim that Daisies was intended as a “moral fable,” part of what is so fetching about this film today is that its anarchic ladies nearly get away with it all.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE

From The Cremator (1966), dir. Juraj Herz (image courtesy MUBI)

The Cinematic Gems of the Czechoslovak New Wave

From Vera Chytilová’s kaleidoscopic Daisies to Juraj Herz’s grim The Cremator, here’s where to start streaming. | Ela Bittencourt

There couldn’t be a better time to dive into the gems of the Czechoslovak New Wave, associated with directors like Jan Němec and animator Jan Švankmajer. Multiple streaming platforms have programs dedicated to this movement, produced during Czechoslovakia’s brief political thaw in the 1960s. Here are some great films to start with.

Revisiting the Surreal Films of Juraj Herz, a Pioneer of Czech Horror

Herz’s films remain the gold standard of what horror cinema can achieve. | Sohan Gadre

A Czech Filmmaker Who Portrayed Eastern Bloc Life Through Women’s Eyes

A comprehensive look at Vera Chytilová’s incisive critiques of gender, family, and love. | Ela Bittencourt