Anna Biller’s films are kind of
what we need right now. We’re in an age
when certain genres are liked by certain demographics but there is no longer
much of a worldwide film culture in which a huge number of people, expert and
not, are interested in enjoying the works of known auteurs, and in discovering
new ones. Film criticism has mostly deteriorated
into a glib process of cataloguing the many ways in which a given film is not
plausible or not enough like other films the critics admire. What Biller offers in Viva (2008) and in The Love
Witch is a blunt but witty reminder that the best films are 1) made to
please their makers and 2) also able to connect with audiences, who are drawn
warmly into a condensation of the filmmaker’s personality and worldview. The most rewarding films are not the
respectable message movies that cry for world peace but really want prestige,
awards, and the money they guarantee.
The films we remember with affection are the ones that keep us mindful
of the filmmakers’ own love for the art form, and this can happen in cheap,
exploitation movies, foreign-language art-house films or mainstream
blockbusters. Biller’s penchant for bawdy
humor and melodrama make her the obvious heiress of Russ Meyer, Radley Metzger
and John Waters, and being a woman who writes and directs her own original work
adds a sharp feminist kick as well, which is downright acidic at times in its
social criticism. The Love Witch takes place in a fantastic, Technicolor Northern
California that exists in a 2016 we might have if the culture had principally frozen
in 1969. Hair, makeup and wardrobe could
easily be confused for those in Beyond
the Valley of the Dolls and yet modern cars and cell phones pop up as
hilarious anachronisms. Elaine (Samantha
Robinson) plays a young woman arriving in a new town, Arcata, aesthetically akin
to Hitchcock’s cinematic California cities, leaving some baggage behind and
hoping for a fresh start in a world where she will find true love and the
perfect relationship with a man, all with the help of her aptitude in
witchcraft. The Love Witch is the kind
of film that cannot be appreciated using a rubric, but ideally should leave you
simply pleased and grateful that someone thought to make it at all.
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