With her radically anarchic Czechoslovak New Wave landmark DAISIES, director Věra Chytilová set out, in her own words, “to make a film that is aesthetically pleasing and interesting, yet [which] is an image of destruction,” one in which “the idea of ‘destruction’ is present in everything, in every move of the camera.” In this edition of Observations on Film Art, Professor Kristin Thompson breaks down the complex visual motifs—in particular the use of plant and food imagery—that Chytilová employs to advance this aesthetic of annihilation, ultimately creating a film that threatens to literally self-destruct.