in the mid-1960s, reform was underway and the restrictions on expression were slowly being loosened. The graduates turned their lenses on everyday life, infusing the experimentation of other cinematic movements with their own unique experiences. These films were often critical of the government, using metaphor and humor to speak out about the oppressive regime. They pushed the boundaries of filmmaking, and their free-spirited artistic tone was often seen as being dangerous to the ideals of communist Czechoslovakia. The films were smuggled out of the country to play at festivals around the world, and so the short but sharp “Czechoslovak New Wave” was born.
This movement lasted only a few years, starting around 1963 and ending in 1968 when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia and toppled the President. After that, many filmmakers fled the country or struggled to find work. But within those five years there was a burst of intense creativity from filmmakers such as Miloš Forman, František Vláčil, and Věra Chytilová.
Chytilová was the only woman in the movement, often referred to as the “First Lady of Czech Cinema.” Born in 1929 to a strict Catholic family, she studied architecture and philosophy at college before becoming a model, a draftsman, and a clapper girl at a film studio in Prague. That was where she developed an interest in making movies, and at twenty-eight years old she applied to study at FAMU. As the only female student in her class, she refused to let her gender be a barrier and often shocked her male peers with her confidence and ferocity. At FAMU, Chytilová experimented with improvisation and the use of non-professional actors and found she preferred work that was less structured.
She continued to play with form in her first feature film, which was released in 1963 and appropriately called Something Different. Here, Chytilová melded documentary and narrative to tell two parallel stories about two very different women. She also contributed to the omnibus film Pearls of the Deep made with several other Czech filmmakers in 1965, but it was her second feature Daisies that truly put her on the map.
To describe the plot of the film is to do it a disservice, because Daisies is more of an existential fever dream than a linear, narrative movie. In short, the story concerns two bored women, Marie I (Jitka Cerhová) and Marie II (Ivana Karbanová), causing havoc as they run amok through their city. They revolt against an oppressive society by treating symbols of wealth, such as money and food, with little care. Throughout the film they go out with wealthy older men, eating at expensive restaurants and leaving their unlucky dates to foot the bills.
Chytilová called the film “a philosophical documentary in the form of a farce,” with the two Maries rebelling against a male-dominated society that views them only as objects. They believe that the world is meaningless and so do what they want. Daisies is also something of a rebellion against filmmaking itself—here Věra Chytilová rejects the standard approach to moviemaking by ditching a linear narrative and creating characters who are difficult to connect with. She uses striking images, jumping from black-and-white to color at unexpected moments, and weaves in surreal montages where the girls consider everything from romance to death.
The two girls do not behave the way young ladies “should.” But the most controversial scene in Daisies actually involved a food fight. In the scene, the girls come across a rich banquet, which they happily destroy, wasting the decadent feast by throwing food at each other. It was this scene which led to the film being banned from playing in theaters, with the Czech Government citing food wastage as the reason for the decision. Appropriately, the film is dedicated “to those who get upset over a stomped-upon bed of lettuce.”
Daisies feels like a bold feminist statement, with the women deciding they do not need men to complete their lives and using male sexual advances to get free food. But though her work often told stories about women and provided new representations of them onscreen, it is important to note that throughout her career Věra Chytilová rejected the label of “feminist” being attached to her films. She saw herself as an individual making a statement about her country, not her gender.
After 1968, many filmmakers of the Czechoslovak New Wave were blacklisted. Věra Chytilová released Fruit of Paradise in 1970 and Kamaradi in 1971, but didn’t make another movie until the ban was lifted in 1976. Later, she turned to teaching, and found success with documentaries. Chytilová passed away in 2014 at the age of eighty-five and is remembered as a trailblazer for female filmmakers. She was an innovator and an uncompromising revolutionary artist and activist whose films dared to make a statement at a time when it was dangerous to do so.
The two girls act the opposite to how young ladies are “supposed” to behave. Using their beauty and youth, they wage a feminine war on society, destroying the very things they are meant to hold dear—food, money, home, work. The male characters in Daisies are reduced to sugar daddies who do whatever the girls want and often end up in tears.
•Věra Chytilová was never officially classified as a blacklisted director, but the government made it nearly impossible for her to find work within Czechoslovakia. Secretly, she directed commercials under her husband’s name, Jaroslav Kučera.
•In the mid-1970s, “Year of Women,” a US film festival, contacted Chytilová to get permission to screen Daisies. After she informed them that her government wouldn’t let her attend or even make films in her own country, the festival petitioned the government on her behalf. This international pressure, plus a letter Chytilová wrote directly to President Gustáv Husák, encouraged the government to ease the ban so she could resume work.
•Even her graduate film The Ceiling (1962) caused controversy. The movie was based on Chytilová’s experiences as a fashion model and focused on exploitation and materialism. After a screening, one audience member stood up and said her film “undermines people’s faith in socialism. If that is the way it really is, then none of it is worth it at all.”
•Chytilová married two cinematographers, Karel Ludwig and Jaroslav Kučera. Her two children with Kučera have followed in their footsteps and both work in the film industry—their daughter, Tereza Kucerová, is an actor and costume designer, and their son, Stepán Kučera, is a cinematographer.
Jenna Ipcar on The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
I’ve always felt stumped as to why we’re even allowed to talk about The Graduate without also mentioning Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid. Nichols and May had a past history as a comedic duo, and I’ve always felt that The Heartbreak Kid served as a more grounded and darkly comedic heightening of The Graduate. Under May’s expert direction, The Heartbreak Kid is a supremely sharp commentary on the wake of destruction left behind by the follies of selfish men.
The Heartbreak Kid essentially starts where The Graduate leaves off: with a man realizing that his wedding hasn’t fulfilled his spiritual desires, and therefore moving on to chase another whim. Lenny Cantrow is shown to be living purely on impulses, which have obvious repercussions that only he can’t seem to anticipate. Similar to Benjamin Braddock, the film also ends with Lenny having a realization that doesn’t extend beyond his own selfishness; he desires the chase more than the prize. While Nichols’ film gently flirts with a dreamy existentialism, May’s goes for some darkly realistic and fully grounded musings on male ego—taking the male fantasy of The Graduate and carrying it to its logical reality in The Heartbreak Kid.
May further flips The Graduate on its head by defining her main character primarily through the gaze of the supporting cast. It’s the expressions and reactions of the people around Lenny that clue us in on how shallow this pursuit of his romantic ideal actually is. Neil Simon’s script easily could have been a misogynistic (or questionably anti-Semitic) and boorish comedy about a man who tosses his nagging, confident Jewish wife, and obtains his ideal fantasy shiksa goddess through dogged persistence and enterprising bullshitting. Yet as the director, May pointedly makes the decision not to indulge the script in this way.