V/A - Daisies / Sedmikrasky - LP

Back in the latter half of the 1960s the burgeoning idiosyncratic group of alternative filmmakers coming out of (then) Czechoslovakia known as the Czech New Wave were taking art house cinemas in Western Europe and America by storm. The hour-long films that came out of the infamous Barrandov production house played a competitive rival to that of the French and Italian New Waves with their very own immaculate and spellbinding takes on cinema verité, film noir, surrealism, and cinema concrète. But after the Soviet Union invaded Czech in August 1968 the clampdown on non-conformist creative arts saw over seventy films either banned or withdrawn from production in a mass culling of film reels until 1970. It is not until recent years that the genre has become widely recognized as a veritable and virtually untapped source of inspiration for fans of experimental cinema, psychedelic cinematography, baroque costumes and scenery, music, and graphic design. Daisies pull together what you might call the Holy Trinity of the Czech New Wave – director Vera Chytilová, costume and set designer Esther Krumbachová, and cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera – arguably the three most forward-thinking and truly experiMENTAL minds in the whole of the CNW collective. Witness Les Petites Margeurites (original French theatrical title) as they mischievously flutter through Prague’s finest restaurants accompanying middle-aged men on flamboyant double dates in gastronomic ménage à trois – “If the world spoils itself, then we shall be spoiled as well” decide the two bikini-clad button-cute Maries in the films opening scenes.