Violet & Daisy

Though Violet & Daisy was released in 2013, it is actually a project from 2011, which was, not incidentally, the year when cinemas experienced an onslaught of action movies for girls in the form of Sucker Punch and Hanna in the context of the previous absolute non-existence of such films. If Sucker Punch was the female equivalent of bombastic comic-book blockbusters and Hanna gave adolescent girls an indomitable and intelligent yet sensitive action heroine in the mould of Jason Bourne, then Violet & Daisy offers girls a variation on mid-budget genre flicks that take a fresh approach to traditional concepts and formulas. With respect to the plot motifs, delirious exaggeration, the spectacular formalistic concept, the self-reflection of genre rules and the medium of film itself, as well as formulaic gestures and symbols, the film actually evokes Seijun Suzuki’s subversive classic Branded to Kill, but instead of pop-art aesthetics, it offers up boudoir aesthetics. The basic stylistic shift that differentiates Violet & Daisy from the two aforementioned films that preceded it consists in its approach to the motifs of childhood and adulthood. In Hanna, the escape of the protagonist, a girl who had been raised to be a killing machine, was stylised into a fairy tale so that she could partially experience the childhood that she was deprived of, and Sucker Punch essentially involved an emancipatory story arc in which the protagonists threw out the innocence of childhood in order to win their freedom while overcoming gender stereotypes. By contrast, the title characters in Violet & Daisy are actually career women who, however, approach their work and their free time through a girlish lens. In their case, adulthood and growing up are not the goal or an ongoing process, but something that simply isn’t there. It cannot be said that the protagonists in any way deny, ignore or resist adulthood. It just doesn’t exist for them. The supporting characters (killer no. 1) either admire the protagonists for this quality or, conversely, wish to weaken it (the gangsters). Based on this principle, the film builds an exaggerated narrative that essentially revolves around the effort to preserve this childish approach. Of course, because the two protagonists represent two different forms of that – Daisy’s curiosity and Violet’s impulsiveness – everything inevitably leads to the fact that the characters will at least for a moment have to reveal their inner selves hidden behind their armour of naïveté. (11/07/2013)

"It's a complete arsenal. There's a little Glock for your purse. The blue purse, you know?" A hard-to-classify film that has such a strange atmosphere that I was completely enthralled. I don't know the last time I've seen such a stunning blending of so many different genres. Violet & Daisy is definitely not an action film, it's more of a melancholic drama with light-hearted jokes about friendship and its value, and it also looks stunning and boasts an impeccable acting trio of Alexis Bledel, Saoirse Ronan and James Gandolfini. What these three have done together is unparalleled and unmatched. (30/03/2014)

This simply got me. Well, not to the point of completely losing it, but Geoffrey Fletcher showed that he doesn't have to be a one-film man. A girl's action movie, incredibly stylized and with a two-year delay even reaching Czech cinemas. I'm a bit sad that I didn't manage to see this film there, but at least I saw it at all. James Gandolfini once again confirmed that the film world has lost a great actor. And the story... Sure, it's actually just a drama, but it's crazy in the right direction. (30/10/2013)