Dasies is a 1966 Czechoslovak comedy-drama film written and directed by Věra Chytilová. Generally regarded as a milestone of the Nová Vlna movement. It follows two teenage girls (played by Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová), both named Marie, who engage in strange pranks.

I know the assignment was to go watch it at like a museum or a screening event but, we had a brief conversation about this film as a class and it sounded really interesting so I decided to watch it on Youtube.

according to wikipedia.com, “novatively filmed, and released two years before the Prague Spring, the film was labeled as “depicting the wanton” by the Czech authorities and banned. Director Chytilová was forbidden to work in her homeland until 1975.” This film is huge for the women empowerment movement in that it’s one of the first international films to be written, directed, and starred by women, which was unheard of at the time.

Throughout the film, the girls go on dates with various older men. In each scene, the girls cavort and eat lots of food while mocking their date, who is driven to the end of his patience, at which point the girls say that they are late for a train, and then ditch the man at the train station.

 

What resonated with me from the early stages of the film is the strong sibling dynamic these two girls have, very playful very in sync which gives it the real feel. When they go out to eat and the girl in the white dress eats like she never ate before is hilarious because she seems so out of place.

 

Throughout the film I get the vibe of a satire show on a late night, mostly because of the ridiculous scenes that appear along the film. the girls eventually go to a nightclub and cause a mini brawl. Marie II also goes to the apartment of a man who is a butterfly collector. In this scene, there are a lot of butterflies shown as still frames. The man repeatedly declares his love to Marie II, whom he calls Julie. At the end, she says that she wants to eat. In later scenes, the two girls lounge about in various rooms while listening to their suitors profess love for them over the phone.

 

While there is certainly an air of whimsy to this film, it is also made with serious themes – relative to both its origins, and to a much more far-reaching time and place. Daisies, and its creator, are major proponents of feminism; agendas clearly stated from the onset of the film. The Maries are frustrated with the labels imposed on them, being young attractive females. Remarking that society see them as “dolls,” they are forced to abide by these societal guidelines. They should not become scientists, they cannot be artists, they would never make it on their own; they must have fun while dating around, and quickly find a husband.

Constantly accosted with the knowledge that beauty and youth are fleeting , they are only told to have fun while they can, never to better themselves to ensure a brighter future. Any outburst from the duo is quickly recognized as improper: women are to speak gently and be polite, it is men who have large appetites and can speak brashly.

 

 

I saw an exhibition called Chiron by an Italian artist Adelita Husni-Bey at New Museum on April 25th. The origin of the title comes from the Greek mythological figure Chiron which evokes the notion of the wounded healer. She addresses themes such as migration and displacement. The exhibition is located at the very end of South Galleries on the first floor separated from other work by a hallway and doubled black curtains. It created an interesting feeling in myself, feeling of not knowing what’s on the other side and of finding out what’s behind the curtains. Among the three short films exhibited, I liked the one that touches on immigration reform in the United States.

The film starts with a group of young women and men, who address themselves as lawyers, discussing laws whether they are tools of the law or the law is a tool for them. The footage includes close-ups of their hands and faces and uses techniques of pulling focus and taking one shots. Its soft focus and how it adjust the focus on the subjects create a feeling the camera is floating around the room not in an intimidating or surveilling way. Gaze of the lawyers is shared among them and does not directly address the existence of the camera. Two long shots reveal that the lawyers are in a typical-looking conference room and in an office. I thought heavily relying on the close-ups and using blue lights were very productive and creative ways of shooting the space since the conference room and office has almost nothing that’s visually pleasing to look at. What’s interesting is the subjects themselves and what they are talking about. B-rolls include observational footage of the abandoned houses, the lawyers pretending like they are typing something on a computer whose screen is turned off, and experimental/performative exercise. The computer footage, I think, is a symbol of them resisting to the system but not getting any feedback as they mention how the system(the law) in the United States does not support immigration and undocumented people and they face frustration of not being able to use the law to help and protect those people. Even though I know a little about theatrical exercise and technique which cultivate body-to-body relationships and break the physical and mental barriers among people, I was not quite sure what the participants are engaging themselves into for what purpose.

In a book called the World of Creativity(Sozo no Sekai), a Japanese writer Ayako Sono talks about how artists don’t have to explain anything further than the work itself as it should tell just sufficient amount of information the audience needs. I have learned that in visual/experimental  production, we don’t necessarily explain everything. However, reading the exhibit’s explanation really contextualized what I just watched. I learned that the film features members of an non-profit organization UnLocal that provides free legal representation to undocumented immigrants in New York City. Husni-Bey conducted a series of workshops there throughout last fall to address oppression, emotional depletion, and the psychological consequences of immigration enforcement. The participants of Husni-Bey’s workshop use theater and creative writing as means to de-individualize pain and to understand its political ramification.   

If I didn’t see the explanation board which I red after watching the piece, how much story and information I could get out from the artifice itself? The film is truly significant and experimental as it does not employ a conventional interview style, but it is still crucial to consider what details a filmmaker includes and omits in her/his work to effectively tell a story while maintaining aesthetic visual presentations.

I went to see Enthusiasm or Symphony of the Donbass an experimental film by Dziga Vertov. I saw this screening at the Anthology Film Archive downtown, it was my first time attending a screening there and it was a great experience. The film begins with a young woman sitting outside at a table. She puts on headphones and then starts adjusting dials on a radio. It then cuts to shots of people praying in a village square. Vertov shows many different people kneeling and bowing their heads at the feet of a statue of Christ, after they finish their prayers they are shown kissing both of the icons feet. These clips are intercut with shots of Russian architecture, crosses, more statues of Christ, as well as alcoholics drinking and passed out in the square. I took this as a statement about loss of innocence. Following these shots are clips of groups of people parading through the streets and tearing down a church. They start to disassemble the church, taking out all of the religious paraphernalia and ripping down the crosses on the top of the steeples. The rest of the film shows different coal factories and factory workers doing endless amounts of labor, and then farm workers also working the fields. The reason this film is considered experimental is because it is the first film that Vertov created with sound. It is considered a symphony because the sounds of the rallies, workers, chants, and that of the coal factories and machine sounds create this almost rhythmic musical essence. What I noticed is that the sounds do not sync up with what is being displayed visually. This was somewhat jarring at first but then became hypnotizing. To me it seemed that the audio could be considered a character of the film on its own. This  I believe was Vertov’s intention.

After reading a description of the intention of the film I realized that some of my assumptions were correct. Vertov intentionally did not sync the score of the film with the visual video aspect. What I found out was that the film was created to promote and celebrate Stalin’s Five Year Plan, and the Donbass region was a sort of epicenter of the plan. Due to the large amount of coal in the region it contained a lot of this natural resource. The Five Year Plan helped this region attain its full form of industrialization. During the film,  there is an announcement made which states that the Five-Year Plan was completed in four years, which I did not catch while watching the film due to the fact that I do not speak Russian. This was possible because of the efforts of the workers, with their enthusiasm and dedication. Despite their completion of the Plan, they continue working, and the cycle never ends. Ending the film with showing the farm and field workers is a way of juxtaposing the old way of life to the new industrialized way of life that socialism formed. This specifically shows how the old way has been formally superseded by the industrialized and socialist world. In very thought out way, Vertov juxtaposed images of the role of religion and the field workers of the past with images of industry, production, and mechanization.