![]() ![]() Women have long been lusted after and feared in equal measure by men, for their feminine wiles that seem able to tempt, disarm then emasculate (which is to many as bad as killing) the most masculine of men.Īnd Elaine is the embodiment of everything men fear and adore about women, with added spells, potions, candles and naked paintings – plus a long black shiny wig that perfectly covers her boobs when she strips off dress, stockings, suspender belt and bra, which she does with great delight and faster than you can say “hocus pocus”.Ĭlick here for the love witch 1 minute video review “I’m the Love Witch!” she exclaims, “I’m your ultimate fantasy!” “Who ARE you?” asks Richard, married to Trish but besotted with Elaine who is lying semi-naked beneath him. Watch with care.Check out my interview with Love Witch director Anna Biller here. ![]() At certain points, The Love Witch induces the kind of mild to moderate discomfort brought on by someone wearing too much perfume-potent to the point of being overpowering. ![]() As the singular creative force coursing through these different aspects of the production, her aesthetic is formidable (the tea room scenes!) even as the story unfolds at an unhurried pace. In addition to writing, directing, editing, and scoring, Biller also did the art direction (teaching herself left-handed calligraphy to make one prop) and created the costumes. Shot in 35mm, her film displays a technical mastery-framing, color, playing with focus-that is glorious to behold. Aside from the offbeat but earnest dialogue, the director has revived the art of the reaction shot, using it to complicate the preceding image or add a greater sense of space. (The use of audio, not visual flashbacks, drives home how these bonds are invisible, and therefore more pernicious.) Her blue, nearly brow-high eye shadow and exquisite mid-century duds seem anachronistic in 2016 (the same year the film takes place), but so are the ideas about sex and gender that entrap her-and that somehow remain pervasive.īiller’s film also happens to be wickedly funny. The scene ends with her breathing heavily, staring into the camera-there seems to be neither refuge nor independent climax for someone as trapped as Elaine. When her husband then praises her for falling in line, Elaine caresses her body and recalls her induction into her coven, involving some questionably consensual sex. As she prepares for bed alone, she remembers the chiding voice of her husband and then father, tearing her apart for failing as a woman (not keeping a clean house, not being thin enough). As Elaine, Robinson is utterly commanding her performance is classically mannered, and not a winking attempt at schlocky “bad acting.” Like a black hole of desire, Elaine’s affection is boundless, as is her ability to suck you in.īut in a brief yet crucial scene, we see the opposite side of the soft, amorous image Elaine projects. ![]() She’s beautiful and poised, speaking exclusively in cooing tones somewhere between a mother’s “Let me see your boo boo” and a lover’s come-hither bedroom whisper (even when she’s not addressing potential mates). Witchcraft isn’t the sole great power Elaine possesses. When cut off cold turkey from her love, these men tend to voluntarily or involuntarily disappear from view… The body count eventually points the cops (and her real estate agent) to her love-’em-and-leave-’em ways, nearly bringing about a second coming of the Salem witch trials.Įlaine’s capriciousness may seem arbitrary and irrational, but isn’t that flight from reason what really lies at the heart of attraction? In a moment at the local strip club that betrays her full, repressed intellect, she succinctly says: “They teach that a ‘normal’ human being is a hyper-rationalist, stoic male, and that a woman’s intuitions and emotions are illnesses that need to be cured.” It’s the film’s most quotable line, by virtue of its blistering accuracy, particularly when related to Hollywood cinema of the past century or so. She uses potions to dose men she finds attractive, only to brush them aside when their affections become too desperate and needy-which is to say, a little too feminine. The damage and pleasure to be found in this position are contained within Elaine (Samantha Robinson), a widow and practicing witch who relocates to a small West Coast town to begin anew her pathological search for true love. Continuing with the concerns of Biller’s past work (2007’s Viva), The Love Witch explores the contradictory conditions under which Western women live: existing somewhere between second and first wave feminism, when the only choice about your body everyone truly feels comfortable with your making is what cute accessory to buy next. ![]()
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