THE LOVE WITCH

Anna Biller is the Wonder Woman of feminist sexploitation movies. Some ten years ago, she caused a furore with her subtly parodistic, but close-to-the-heart orgy-mystery-theatre-movie “Viva”. Now she’s returning with a technicolor-dream (or nightmare), that bewitches one as if it were the communique from another world, or at least a parallel dimension. Elaine is a superwoman in many ways and amazingly charming. Her new apartment is a Victorian gothic jewel, iridescent in all the colors of the night, where she manufactures her various magic potions and powders. She yearns for, no she must find a man to love her. But this proves to be by no means simple, not least because her spells are too potent. Anna Biller is a renaissance woman. Not only does she direct, she also designs all the costumes and the scenery with an incredible love of details and totally in tune with the era she’s trying to evoke. “The Love Witch” is her ode to the erotically charged thrillers of the sixties with their feminist undertones, charged with melodramatic gestures for the purpose of maximum emotional quake. It goes without saying that a filmmaker like Biller shot it all on 35mm film. “The Love Witch” is a movie to immerse oneself in, to tuck oneself up with and to take a bath in.