| dc.description.abstract | Věra Chytilová’s The Fruit of Paradise was filmed in 1969 on the heels of
Chytilová’s now world-famous feature Daisies [Sedmikrásky (1966)]. It
symbolically bridges the spirit of the Czech New Wave and the occupation of
Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops, which began in August, 1968. The
director herself has stated clearly that the film is a response to this invasion; it is a
radical protest presented through abstraction, and a deliberate juxtaposition of
mythology, classicism, eroticism, and formal experimentation, rather than a
direct linguistic affront to the authorities. This article reflects on Chytilová’s film
within the context of a wider twentieth-century avant-garde, noting particular
correspondences and sympathies between international surrealisms, the early
twentieth-century Czech avant-garde, and American experimental filmmaking. It
explores the collaborative sensory affect created in the film through a
synaesthetic blend of haptic encounters staged in an imaginary Eden. Through
distortion, collage, convulsive chance, repetition, and slowness, the film build a
radical aura in the Brakhagean sense, delivering an emotional and political
intensity via formal rather than narrative elements. In the twenty-first century,
Chytilová’s body of work occupies a prominent position in an international
female avant-garde, forming dialogues across regional and political boundaries
past and future. | en_GB |
