When I first saw this one advertised, it sounded interesting, but something about the stilted style in the trailer just didn’t pull me in. I’m so glad I eventually gave it a chance. I’ve now watched it at least 4-5 times and I think it’s just great.
The Love Witch (2016)
This is a visually arresting film that is more than a little difficult to process. One part early 70s pastiche melodrama, one part satire of persistent gender expectations, and one part art house flick, with just a dash of occult sexploitation, it is an exercise in deep criticism and deeper irony, asking us to both identify with its protagonist’s tragic tale of loves lost and loves murdered, and to question the often (self) destructive ways of thinking that she has come to espouse. It’s a heady, gorgeous, stylized piece of work that calls for critical response.
Written, directed, produced, costume designed, set decorated, art directed, scored, and edited by Anna Biller, this is a true piece of auteur cinema. It is clear that absolutely nothing appears on screen accidentally and that everything, from the hemming of a dress, to a musical quotation in the score, to the hint of discomfort on an actor’s face is fully intentional, often carrying consciously chosen meaning. It invites the viewer to analyze what is presented, but it offers few obvious readings.
Characters sometimes speak very explicitly, presenting ideas that sound like authorial voice, but the choice of the mouthpiece for those very ideas sometimes undercuts the sense that they should be trusted. The narrative and focus on Samantha Robinson’s Elaine draws the viewer into her cool, love obsessed mania, but at the same time, other characters directly call out her seemingly patriarchy perpetuating views and much of the course of the story shows that this way to lead to madness—plus, she also comes across as quite the sociopath (as in the scene where she meets with a friend to theoretically comfort her after her husband’s lovesick suicide, but is cold as ice and unwilling to engage with any emotions that are not her own), so maybe not the best person to choose as a role model, even if charming and perfectly coifed.
It feels so clear that Biller knows exactly what she wants to communicate, but at the same time, there is a constant irony, casting any interpretation of even the most seemingly on the nose symbolism into doubt.
The story follows Elaine as she relocates to a new town from San Francisco, following her husband “leaving her” (by ceasing to draw breath).
A friend of a friend, Trish (Laura Waddell), shows her the house she’s arranged to stay in and takes her out for lunch at a tea room that seems to exist inside whatever it is that wedding cakes dream about.
We learn of Elaine’s obsession with being loved by men and her insistence that the only way to find satisfaction is to give them whatever they want (food, beauty, sex, ect.) so that they will love her as much as she loves them.
She uses “sex magic to make love magic” but that love magic never ends well, generally killing the targeted male by overwhelming him with emotions he’s incapable of coping with. This plays out with a couple of men she sets her sights on, including the local professor/self-styled libertine, Wayne (Jeffrey Vincent Parise) and Trish’s husband, Richard (Robert Seeley), before locking firmly onto the particularly manly (toxically so) detective who’s investigating Wayne’s murder, Griff (Gian Keys).
Unlike the others who have cracked, becoming blubbering messes in their newfound feelings for her, thus turning her off by being weak “like a woman”, Griff maintains a certain disdain for Elaine and her desire, both satisfying her with his overt masculinity and crushing her with his rejection. In the end, claiming him for herself, she stabs his heart out, mirroring a tarot-inspired painting adorning her bedroom wall.
The story is fairly straightforward, but this short summary does it little justice, especially without presenting a sense of the overall style and stylization of the picture. The whole film is made to look as if it were filmed sometime in the past (mid 50s, late 60s, early 70s perhaps—it’s never exactly clear), though the presence of cell phones situates it in the more or less present, resulting in the story feeling somehow outside of time, but rooted in old fashioned mores of masculinity and femininity.
This presents itself in the technicolor-approximating film stock, the 50s era hard lighting, the sumptuous costuming and makeup and set dressing, and of course, the stilted, presentational acting choices. This last aspect could certainly turn off a viewer, but is probably one of the most effective aspects of the film, allowing a clear analytical distance between spoken text and filmmaker intent, and underlining the absurdity of character relationships, such as the hyper-masculine, square jawed Griff being served constantly by other officers in his precinct who happen to be female or people of color (you can help him in this murder investigation by getting him a sandwich—you know how he likes it). And it is often very funny.
This style allows for moments or scenes that in any other film would stand out as unrealistic, such as the scene in which Elaine meets Wayne and, in under two minutes of dialogue, has him eagerly take her to his remote cabin for dinner and sex. It’s quick work and a nice spot of whimsy.
This style also lets Gahan (Jared Sanford), the leader of Elaine’s coven, spend nearly 4 minutes lecturing girls at a burlesque club on the importance of reclaiming and harnessing feminine sexuality in order to exert real power in life and have men finally see them as human beings while in the background, the men in the club go crazy over the performer on stage. This is a great example of the dialectic of the film between spoken and visual text. On one level, the words he speaks seem like they could reflect the filmmaker’s views, that the reclaiming of female sexuality and desire is empowering, but the fact that it is a man speaking them, and particularly this man, whose touch we see Elaine shrinking from and who elicits a cringe when he kisses her in greeting, who it seems might just have gotten involved with witchcraft because it grants him authority over a bevy of often naked girls who he can have sex with, because, um magic and stuff, really undercuts his words and, while aspects ring true, the dubious motives of their speaker makes them seem suspect.
And the style also makes it possible to include a fairly long scene at a Ren Fair hosted by the coven where Elaine and Griff are taken through a fairytale mock wedding after which voiceovers of their conflicting views of love (her: in time, a woman loves all of a man’s little foibles more and more and a love grows stronger and more grounded; him: love makes you weak and in time, any woman becomes irritating and trapping) overlaying scenes of their newlywed bliss. It’s a strange, funny, pretty-if-kinda-silly-looking, and it lays bare how doomed they both are in this relationship. We know she will be hurt and we expect he won’t survive it (though I think we also don’t feel particularly bad about that).
Ultimately, this is an intriguing watch. Especially on first viewing, the film’s approach provides a really novel experience, and it can be hard to know what to make of it. Some will be irritated and some will be enraptured, but it is inarguably unique and clearly expressive of a creative, thoughtful, and singular mind at work.