The Love Witch
Dir Anna Biller, US 2016 On UK release from 10 March
Following the death of her husband, the police are paying young witch Elaine (Samantha Robinson) more attention than she cares for, so she ups sticks, relocates and is soon on the lookout for new love. Sustaining herself by making love potions and other amorous magical paraphernalia, she meets the handsome Wayne (Jeffrey Vincent Parise), who is immediately bewitched by her magnetic charms. However, after Elaine has used her magic to seduce him, Wayne starts experiencing some odd side effects, becoming highly emotional. Turned off by her lover’s personality change, Elaine leaves Wayne in bed; but when she checks on him the following morning, he is dead. Struck by panic, she gets rid of his body and turns to magic for protection. Everything seems fine at first, but soon the police are onto Elaine, and her witchcraft is tested to the utmost when the charismatic detective Griff (Gian Keys) comes calling.
The Love Witch pays impressive homage to the colourful exploitation films of the early 1970s, while humorously riffing on the potentially problematic nature of those films with regard to feminism. Newcomer Samantha Robinson perfectly captures the quintessential Russ Meyer girl, looking and acting every bit the part of a purring sex kitten.
The visuals are also gorgeous, not least because the film was shot on 35mm, but also because every element of the set decoration and costumes perfectly captures the æsthetic of the time. This is all due to the The Love Witch’s creator, one-woman powerhouse Anna Biller, who has worn pretty much every single hat on this production: writer, director, producer, composer, production designer, art director, set decorator, costume designer and editor. It is evident from the result that Biller is a force to be reckoned with and that her film is a genuine labour of love, and the expert staging of the story leaves us in no doubt that she completely understands the genre and era she is paying tribute to.
Unfortunately, this level of passionate involvement in a project
can also lead to a film maker failing to scrutinise her own work with any degree of objectivity. While The Love Witch is a visually stunning piece of cinema, it’s obvious that Biller the director has found it very difficult to act as editor of her own work. With a duration of two hours, the film runs a good 30 minutes too long and is in dire need of cutting. After about an hour, the picture grinds to a halt, its second half often dragging along at a pace where the narrative becomes unclear. Scenes that do nothing to further the plot are left to meander on without a clear sense of direction, and this unfortunately manages to disconnect the audience from the film and negate much of the effort that has been made to transport us back to a different cinematic world.
It may be stylistically impressive, but while The Love Witch successfully recreates the visuals of vintage Russ Meyer, its obvious references to Romero’s Season of the Witch serve only to show that Biller’s film never quite attains the intriguing power of that Seventies gem.
Fortean Times Verdict
retro PassIon ProJect Is stunnIng but oVerLong 7