Anna Biller's film The Love Witch is...indescribable. It's a super-super-super indie movie that was not widely released. I only saw it through the grace of a true cinephile friend (hi, John!) who seeks out weird movies and tells me to watch them (he's the one who first told me to watch Duke of Burgundy and for that I will be forever grateful).
Perhaps the most notable thing about The Love Witch is that it was filmed in technicolor, so it looks ripped straight out of the late 60s/early 70s. Additionally, the costumes and sets give the film a retro look although the time period in which the film is set is ambiguous. Really, the best thing I can do is post some screencaps and let you see for yourself:
See what I mean?
The Love Witch is worth watching for the unique cinematography alone and it truly is its saving grace as the actual plot starts to lag in the second half of the film.
Briefly, The Love Witch is about a woman, Elaine (Samantha Robinson), who identifies as a witch (she went through a sex ritual and everything!). After the death of her husband, Jerry, she rents a room from her friend Trish. Elaine wants to make a man fall in love with her, so she begins seeking out potential bachelors (or, in the case of Trish's husband, Richard, married men) and using her witchy spells to make them fall for her. Problem is, Elaine's love magic is TOO powerful and then men fall SO hard for her, they...well, they die. Girl's still learning, ok?!
The film's message is both radically and subversively feminist. On the one hand, Elaine's desire for a man--any man!--and her seduction tactics (Cook him dinner! Wear sexy lingerie! "Be his fantasy", as she tells Trish) are directly out of a 1960s relationship advice book. Additionally, Elaine's "dicks before chicks" attitude toward her friend Trish (she seduces Trish's husband, like, immediately) is very anti-feminist.
On the other hand, Elaine is a frighteningly powerful woman. First of all, she can--and does--kill men. Sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose. Her first victim is Wayne, a college professor. After being hexed with love, Wayne becomes attached and needy. He eventually dies of a broken heart. Elaine takes one look at the sobbing man and sneers "pussy".
Elaine's blase attitude toward men borders on the hilarious. She's a full-blown sociopath who loves 'em and leaves 'em when they inevitably fail to live up to her romantic fantasies. And this is perhaps where the crux of the feminist message of The Love Witch lies: it's not *men* or any one *man* Elaine wants, it's *love*. She doesn't give a fuck about these dudes--they're merely vessels to provide her with something she wants. And if they don't work out, she's on to the next poor sap to cross her path.
Also, and maybe I'm reading to much into this, but the men Elaine seduces all have penis/bluntly masculine names. There's Wayne Peters (peter!), Richard (i.e. Dick), and Griff. Maybe I'm getting a little too Feminist Cinema 101 here, but I feel like Biller was trying to express that, to Elaine, men are interchangeable symbols of masculinity. They're merely ready and waiting phalluses (phalli?) in suits for Elaine to mess around with and then dump.
The Love Witch is a real trip. It's High Camp, complete with purposefully cheesy special effects, saturated colors, and gratuitous female flesh. I watched it with a few friends and half the time we were going "what the fuck?". It's certainly not the greatest film ever (although it has an inexplicable 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, so I guess the critics liked it), but it's too unique to be denied.
Just watch the trailer. Perhaps you'll be as mesmerized by Elaine as her beaux were...before they perished...
Grade: A
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