VÉRA CHYTILOVÁ | CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1966, 81m | 6PM, FRIDAY 20 JULY
This radically mischievous work was the second feature of the wave’s sole female director, Vera Chytilova. In her visually arresting, capricious film — full of colorful experiments, dazzling collage effects and surrealist antics — two dangerously bored young women have anarchic fun in a series of loosely connected episodes.– Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times
The film most emblematic of the freedoms afforded artists by the then-imminent Prague Spring, Véra Chytilová’s best known film is a glorious Dadaist revolt against dominant narrative genres and modes of representation. Two young women embark upon an anarchic rampage, joyously exploiting a string of hapless men; chaos and wanton destruction ensue.
Preceded by A Bagful of Fleas (Chytilová 45m 1962)
Courtesy of the National Film Archive in Prague
Czech with English subtitles
Unrated 15+
Co-presented with the Czech and Slovak Film Festival and the Australian Cinémathèque.
This is a free screening taking place at the Australian Cinémathèque, GoMA, as part of the retrospective Original Sins: Resistance and Feminism in the Avant-Garde Cinema of Véra Chytilová.