A Feminist Farce?

Daisies is the first film we have screened by a female director that focuses on women protagonists. Yet this film is far from an easy film to interpret. Do you see a feminist "message" in the film? Or is this film lampooning such a message? Is this film highlighting and ridiculing sexist views of women? What about the fact that the women protagonists are hardly the paragons of virtue (They have, after all, "gone bad.")? Please enlighten us.

Food, Glorious Food

The two main characters in Daisies are constantly eating or at least playing with food. They have lavish dinners at restaurants, bathe in milk and playfully slice bananas and sausage. This trend culminates in the scene in which they sneak into a feast, indulge their palettes, and engage in a food fight. What is the point of all this food, glorious food? Can you make sense of the use of food in at least some of these scenes?

Umbrellas v. Top Hats

One way to look at the Umbrellas of Cherbourg is as a radical revisioning of the tradition of the Hollywood musical.   In what ways does it changes stylistically from such films as Top Hat?  How does it change thematically?  Are their visions of love similar or dramatically different?  Are Guy and Genevieve "In Heaven" in the same ways as Jerry and Dale?

What's New About the New Wave

French New wave auteurs like Demy envisioned their films as a radical re-visoning of the static filmmaking of the French studio system. What experimental ideas or techniques did you notice in Umbrellas of Cherbourg (could you explain in some detail)? How do these experiments change the way we enjoy a film? Are they engaging or annoying? Do they bring meaning to the film? Do they make fun of the whole idea of bringing meaning to film?