The Love Witch - 2016 quick review
The Love Witch - 2016 Dir. Anna Biller, Written by Anna Biller. Starring Samantha Robinson (Elaine Parks), Laura Waddell (Trish), Jennifer Ingrid (Barbara), Jared Sanford (Gahan), Jeffery Vincent Parise (Wayne Peters), Gian Keys (Griff Meadows), Robert Seeley (Richard), Stephen Wozniak (Jerry)
Elaine Parks, a witch, travels to Arcata, California, to restart her life after the death of her recently ex husband. Staying at an apartment owned by her friend Barbara, also a witch. Elaine is looking to find love, but will the men she finds be able to handle her love magic?
Visually, this film is stunning. From the costumes, to the set design, to the way the characters are filmed, everything is so vibrant and beautiful. The film has a 60’s pop aesthetic to it. Bright bold colors, soft focused extreme close ups, kind of a jazzy score. The dreamy, over saturated aesthetic of the film is refreshing to see after years of hyper realistic films with the same color pallets.
The acting style is very presentational, in keeping with the over all 60’s aesthetic. Which I love but can see some feeling it a tad off putting. You really need to be willing to let this film take you on a journey. A journey that eventually finds itself at a renaissance fair, where we have a lovely song about love being a magical thing and a mock wedding between Elaine and love interest number three.
This film explores a feminist view on the power of the sexuality of women, as well as the male fear that arises when men come face to face with that power. The men in the film all start in a slightly predatory place. A college professor who we see actively hitting on one of his students. A student that happens to know exactly where his forest love nest of a cabin is located. A husband who’s eye has started to roam away from his wife because he wants adventure, but does not communicate that with said wife. A police officer who is boasting about sleeping with a colleague and is determined to be the manliest man that ever did man. A male witch who the film alludes to his having taken advantage of women in the coven under the guise of practicing a ritual. All of the men in this film, apart from the witch Gahan, meet an untimely end, which is preceded by a moment of Elaine’s magic bringing out a deeper underlining emotional and psychological issue. The college professor is scared to be alone, the husband is depressed and obsessive, and the police officer is just toxic. There is a lot to get into with this film and I’m going to come back to it for a more in depth look.
