Critique of Pure Image - Between Fake and Quotation
Sedmikrásky (Daisies)
Feature film, 74 min., 1966. Downloaded and reassembled in small bits coming from the computers of her wired fans across the world via the shared peer-to-peer networks.
Vera Chytilová, born in 1929, was an essential figure in the Czech New Wave of the sixties. After studying philosophy and architecture, she worked in various jobs and found herself working as a clapper girl at the Barrandov Studios just outside Prague. She worked her way to assistant director, then studied with director Otakar Vavra at FAMU.
In Daisies, two uninhibited young women (both named Marie) turn against the numbing state of society in a madcap flurry of pranks and material destruction. After this film, for six years, Chytilová was unable to make a film. Though she was never officially blacklisted, her scripts were rejected or shelved, and she was not allowed to attend various women's film festivals around the world.