The masterpiece of the Czech filmmaker Vera Chytilova, produced in 1966, comes out in the dining room in restored copy.
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Who does not yet know the little Marguerites (1966), masterpiece of Vera Chytilova (1919-2014), director of the new Czech wave, must hasten to discover it. The two protagonists, Marie 1 La Brune (Jitka Cerhova) and Marie 2 La Blonde (Ivana Karbanova), embark the spectator in a crazy deconstruction of the world, in the footsteps of Jean-Luc Godard, Dada poetry and American experimental cinema . The film comes out in the dining room in restored copy, and one of the two actresses, Jitka Cerhova, will come to present the film at the Medici reflection, in Paris, Wednesday August 31 at 8 p.m.
The two heroines die of boredom in Prague, in the Socialist Republic who was going to know his “spring” in 1968. Refusing all conventions, as well as the Morne and Morbid Society of the time, Marie 1 and Mary 2 decide to live as “depraved”, according to their expression. Images of gears and bombs in the credits of the beginning of the film give us the atmosphere: in Chaos, Chaos and a half. The destruction becomes their watchword and nothing can resist their passage, from a frenzied session in a cabaret at the restaurant table, where they gave, gratis.
Pop art
If eating means “chewing life”, then Marie 1 and Marie 2 devour it, in a sumptuous banquet scene worthy of La Grande Bouffe (1973), by Marco Ferreri (1928-1997). The two flambhers fuel in insolence: “Is she old, your old man?” Asks Marie 2 to an elderly gentleman who invites them to the restaurant, watching for the sexual reward after the meal. He will remain hungry.
This Pop Art jewel had impressed Jacques Rivette in his time (1928-2016), who had interviewed at length – with Michel Delahaye (1929-2016) – The director in February 1968 in the Cahiers du Cinéma (n ° 198) . By the grace of a collage of images and sounds, colored filters, the filmmaker makes a story of the absurd, highly stylized. The tandem of girls moves like a figurines on a game board, the recurrent checkered pattern (on the swimwear, on the bedroom wall, etc.) evoking a set of ladies … or chess.