This is an announcement to tell you, cultured and good-looking cineaste that you are, that next Wednesday, September 28th, at 6 pm, there will be a screening of Vera Chytilova's 'Daisies.' Completely FREE – I won't ask you to buy a timeshare or even to subscribe to my newsletter. This is the second screening in the exclusive two-screening series titled 'Film Waves – Part 1,' hosted by me, some guy that went to school for far too long.

If you missed the first film in this series, never fear! You should still come to this one. Vera Chytilova was a leading figure of the Czech New Wave, a film movement that began in the 1960s shortly after the French New Wave. Unlike other new waves, the Czech New Wave took place in communist Czechoslovakia, under the heavy influence and control of the Soviet Union. The films of the Czech New Wave were united in their opposition to Soviet Socialist Realism, which was the proscribed, officially approved style of art in the Soviet block. To reject this style, Chytilova mined a deep artistic tradition in Czechoslovakia – that of Surrealist art. In its excess and the way it defamiliarizes everyday things, 'Daisies' rebels against the strictures of the official Soviet style to try and create something new. An allegory of two doll-like girls, which Chytilova described in official press releases as a morality play critical of its two protagonists, 'Daisies' can also be seen to be fiercely feminist with a coded critique of patriarchal culture carried out by its fragmentation and New Wave focus on the language of cinema.

The film begins with one of the girls complaint that "Everything's going bad in this world." Maybe you can relate? Come see one solution to that existential problem as the girls rebel against all rules of society and cinema and burn that ***** (insert intensifier noun of your choice here) down – at one point, literally.

And as an added bonus, it's only 76 minutes long. That's right, you'll definitely be home before bedtime!

See you next Wednesday,
Dr. Pete