There’s something quite dazzling about Vera Chytilová’s first fiction feature; though roughly half of it is a documentary of sorts. There are two narratives: world champion gymnast Eva Bosáková training for her last event and housewife Vera (Vera Uzelacová) dealing with the difficulties of childcare and being a housewife. Although it is clear that Bosáková’s narrative is documentary, and it climaxes with her final performance, it is shot in often highly abstract ways which are anti-realist. Whether the framing is using extreme close-ups of parts of her body or unusual angles (there are some astonishing overhead shots), Chytilová is not representing reality simply. In addition, Bosáková constantly tells her trainer-husband she can’t do things (possibly an unusual image for a sportsperson to display) and many of the movements are obviously choreographed or Jan Curík’s cinematography would have no chance to keep up with them. I’m not denying the reality of what we’re seeing but noting that the stylisation gives it a constructed feel. From a sporting perspective it is notable that gymnasts of the time were very unlike the bendy youngsters of today but no less brilliant.
The second narrative outlines Vera’s mundane life and is shot far more conventionally. Here we are in a familiar melodrama of an inattentive husband and a wife whose life horizons are severely constricted; though nowhere near as long as Chantal Ackerman’s feminist classic Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Belguim-France 1975) – which I haven’t seen – there is enough routine shown to give a deep sense of ennui. Several times Vera pauses and says, to herself, “What was it I wanted?”
The only link between the two narratives is Bosáková’s appearance on Vera’s television once. However, the two strands are entwined with the superb editing of Miroslav Hájek, facilitated by Chytilová’s camera placement, that uses graphic matches to link the disparate locations. So a close-up of leg might be matched by a close-up of the same shape in the ‘other’ narrative.
Although it may seem that Bosáková has more freedom than Vera she is, mostly, coached by men telling her to do things she doesn’t want to do. However, the resolution to her narrative does offer her some hope for the future; for Vera, however, the pattern seems unlikely to change.
Chytilová’s Daisies is one of the great Czech New Wave films and although Something Different comes nowhere near the brilliance of that it is something different that is well worth seeing.
The Case for Global Film 