Image: Samantha Robinson in The Love Witch photograph courtesy Melbourne International Film Festival.
‘It’s a bit garish,’ is one of the first comments Elaine (Samantha Robinson, Labyrinths) hears when she enters her new apartment – with its walls plastered in hues and designs inspired by tarot cards. ‘It’s a bit bright,’ she’s told later when she reveals her clothing’s candy-coloured lining, as her suitor (Jeffrey Vincent Parise, TV’s General Hospital) becomes almost hypnotised by the rainbow-like fabric hidden beneath her garments.
Given that Anna Biller’s (Viva) second feature is painted in a palette of dazzling shades that threaten to put technicolor to shame, the same statements could apply to The Love Witch as a whole. Diverting your eyes from the film’s vibrant display is impossible, but so is escaping the smart exploration of female roles and fantasies nestled within its luminous images.
The amorous-obsessed enchantress of the movie’s title, Elaine wants little more than a man who loves her – and she’s willing to employ spells, potions and sex to help secure her ideal paramour. After moving to northern California to flee past pain and start life anew, she crafts magical concoctions to conjure the romance she yearns for. Alas, when her charms start working a little too well, she begins killing potential partners rather than bewitching them, attracting the attention of handsome detective Griff (Gian Keys, short Queens of the Highway) in the process.
While The Love Witch initially appears poised to tell an all-too-recognisable tale of a woman looking for comfort and contentment in the arms of a male protector, subversion lurks underneath the film’s veneer of familiarity. Here, courtship is easy and consummation routine – both for the watching audience, and, increasingly, for Elaine herself. Instead, it’s the rationale behind the traditionally accepted rituals that give rise to relationships that remains the feature’s more considerable subject of contemplation, including the conditioning that has sparked its protagonist’s desire to find and please a man, and the ultimately unfulfilling nature of her quest when it seemingly comes to fruition.
Accordingly, Biller’s eye-catching aesthetics don’t simply highlight the writer, director, producer, composer, editor and production and costume designer’s many skills, or her painstaking commitment to repurposing the lurid sheen of ’60s and ’70s sexploitation efforts. As evident in every splash of saturated colour and lingering shot of the detailed staging, they also lure viewers into a seductive blend of horror and comedy that’s knowing in several senses of the word: shrewd in its many dissections of just why Elaine so desperately needs to feel adored, winking in its blend of contemporary commentary and throwback melodrama, and consistently aware of the fine line it treads between indulgence and perceptiveness.
Cue a movie that proves a glorious feast for the senses as well as for the mind, and only falters when some of its sequences begin to feel over-extended. Of course, being forced to spend more time in The Love Witch‘s delightfully delirious world is hardly cause for complaint; nor is luxuriating in its dedicated performances, particularly the enthralling Robinson. Without the determined work of the cast, the film could’ve fallen on the grating side of camp and eccentric; however whether her eyes are monopolising the frame or she’s uttering the script’s purposefully pointed dialogue, it is the feature’s leading lady who best perfects the requisite combination of playfulness and intensity. Anchoring an ambitious amalgam of gorgeous sights and gleeful insights, it’s her entrancing spell The Love Witch is under as much as its director.
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
The Love Witch
Director: Anna Biller
USA 2016 120 mins
Revelation Perth International Film Festival
7–17 July 2016
Queensland Film Festival
15–24 July 2016
Melbourne International Film Festival
28 July – 14 August 2016
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