The love witch3/26/2023 I think that despite its misgivings it probably could do with a second viewing if only to try and look past what’s visually on offer. Perhaps it’s intended to be satirical or even a parody of gender roles today, you know, a bit tongue in cheek. Maybe I’m missing the point completely and its real message went straight over my head because I left the screening feeling mostly annoyed at its portrayal of women and its degradation of men. Elaine’s character has different sides – just like we all have – but aside from presenting her as visually pleasing there aren’t any other redeeming qualities to her character so it was impossible to even remotely identify to her character at all. I definitely found it a confusing film to watch. It seems to desperately try and examine the idea of how women think they should behave in order to secure happiness through the love of a man but in doing so it reduces men to comical and pathetic stereotypes and presents the lead female character as a crazed maniac, driven to insanity in her efforts to please men through her sexual prowess. With what is ultimately a fairly simple tale of love and a wanting to be loved there is an abundance of confusing and mixed messages woven into it. Two hours is a fairly reasonable duration for any film, but the second hour of The Love Witch was hard going with long periods with not a lot going on, which although good for absorbing the set pieces, did feel dragged out (the renaissance fair scene for example was especially hard going).Īnna Biller pays so much attention to the tiniest of details that it seems she forgot what it was she was trying to achieveĭespite the indisputable amount of hard work and effort that’s gone into bringing this project to life it doesn’t quite make up for the lack of actual story, and that old saying ‘style over substance’ definitely comes to mind. Even the acting is reminiscent of those old Hollywood womens' films, stilted and almost over acted but in a way befitting of the whole film. The quick zooms, kaleidoscopic camera effects and sharp glares make it feel like a step back in time. The film is shot entirely on film which adds to the vintage quality to the look, combined with the music taken from Ennio Morricone soundtracks as well as other Italian soundtracks, makes it feel as though you’re watching an old American melodrama with a dark and twisted edge. David Mullen, Biller utilises light for maximum impact, resulting in a depth and glamour that is almost sickly sweet. There is no doubt that the film is, for the most part, incredibly pleasing to watch based on the detail and style alone. Using the idea of witches as a basis to construct her characters, Biller investigates the conflation between female power and female sexuality through the perfect casting of Robinson as Elaine. Inspired by women’s pictures from old Hollywood and Laura Mulvey’s essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Biller set out to make a film that explores the idea of ‘woman’. Through such a tight control over the project Biller’s vision is fully realised on screen in every aspect. In short, a mask.You’ve got to hand it to Anna Biller who wrote, produced and directed The Love Witch - in fact she also designed the costumes, edited and even composed some of the music for the film. But what is even more interesting about Elaine is that at no point in the film do her expressions appear to match these monologues, and instead what the spectator is presented with, consistently and unequivocally, is the shiny surface of her expressionless face. For example, in a 2017 interview with the Guardian, Biller described her film as ‘an exploration of what happens when you “ask what’s inside the mind of a female stereotype”’ – with the answer apparently being provided in the interior monologues that are scattered throughout the film, articulated by Elaine. Sound like a crazy mash-up of genres? That’s because it is! And things get even more complicated once we consider how The Love Witch represents the relationship between the face and the mind. Biller has, for example, often compared The Love Witch to Baby Face, a 1933 drama starring Barbara Stanwyck as an attractive manhunter who uses sex to advance her social and financial status. Released in 2016 and set in California in what might be termed a hazy present, The Love Witch is, nevertheless, drenched in anachronism: from the gaudy ‘60s make-up practically plastered to the faces of the characters, to the peculiar traces of Pagan Witchcraft that crop in many scenes, to the more oblique allusions to 1930s' Hollywood cinema that cling, in particular, to the central character, a beautiful yet deadly witch named Elaine. Like Hitchcock? Love horror? Fan of feminism? Then Anna Biller’s at once outrageously funny and deadly serious The Love Witch is the film for you.
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