Jan 05, 2024
WAY BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS - My Review of THE LOVE WITCH (4 1/2
Stars) Certain filmmakers have earned that exalted status of "auteur" because of an
unmistakable voice and drive to have things their way. Quentin Tarantino, Martin
Scorsese, Terrence Malick, and, not kidding, Sofia Coppola make films you can peg as
theirs within the opening frames. By that standard, Anna Biller would be an auteur's
auteur, because she does almost everything - writes, directs, produces, edits, paints
the art on the walls...I mean everything! It's taken 9 years since her prior feature,
VIVA, to get THE LOVE WITCH made, and much of that time she has spent hand sewing the
costumes. It's all in service of a very specific aesthetic hearkening back to the
Technicolor thrillers and dramas of the 60s and 70s. There's a little bit of Hammer
horror, Russ Meyer kitsch, and Radley Metzler erotica thrown into the mix, but with a
more modern feminist twist. Nothing in her films resembles real life, and it's strictly
intentional. Ross Hunter, who produced the types of artificial melodramas Biller most
likely emulates as well, once famously said, "The way life looks in my pictures is how
I want life to be. I don't want to hold a mirror up to life as it is". So what is THE
LOVE WITCH? It's the story of Elaine (Samantha Robinson), a witch who seeks true love,
but her potions keep leading to disastrous consequences. She moves into a Victorian
boarding house in Eureka, California, and if weren't for the presence of cell phones
and computers, you'd swear it was set in the 60s. When Elaine drives, Biller and her
master cinematographer, M. David Mullen, use rear projection, reportedly as an homage
to the shots of Tippi Hedren in THE BIRDS. The costumes, makeup, music, hair, high key
lighting and sets evoke a candy-colored dream land. Take the camp out of BEYOND THE
VALLEY OF THE DOLLS or DESPERATE LIVING and you'll find yourself getting closer to what
THE LOVE WITCH has to offer. Elaine fills her world with erotic paintings and tiered
cake trays filled with an endless array of desserts. She frequents a female-only cafe
where the customers sip on tea and listen to the stylings of a harpist. She finds
friendship with Trish (Laura Waddell), a married woman who disagrees with Elaine, who
espouses using "womanly wiles" to satisfy her men. Trish has more of a feminist bent,
but seems the unhappier of the two. Elaine finds her power by looking and acting the
way men expect of women, but turns the tables on them once she has them in her grips.
It's not played diabolically, however, as Elaine TRULY wants the love of a good man.
It's as if she subjugates herself to the patriarchy, but her instincts can't help but
snuff it out. A little warning. THE LOVE WITCH is long, slow, and filled with endless
pauses. It's a little too slow at times and could have benefited with 10-20 fewer
minutes, but part of me wanted to just watch this movie forever. The actors play the
material with the utmost of sincerity. There's never a wink to the audience. Speech
patterns are stilted and nobody ever talks over each other. It's a world where men are
suave and women are luscious creatures. Don Draper would kill to go to the strip club
in this film. Robinson exudes the perfect robot on lithium quality of her character,
making this a strangely triumphant performance. Sharon Tate would have approved. Anna
Biller fully realizes her vision, which is such a rarity in filmmaking, where
compromise and collaboration rule the day. Just try pitching a film set in 2024 with
Renaissance Fair scenes, sacrificial rituals rife with nudity of the hairy bush
variety, and strippers twirling pasties, and see how far YOU get with today's
executives. So is she an auteur? For holding steadfast to her guns to make the films
she wants to make, Anna Biller comes across a pastiche artist but her feminist slant on
the material is what has earned her the status as one of cinema's most original
auteurs. THE LOVE WITCH is currently playing roadshow style in theaters all over North
America. Watch the trailer and check out its release schedule at:
http://thelovewitch.oscilloscope/
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