The Love Witch (2016)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Love Witch (2016) – A. Biller 

Whereas this might look on the surface like an homage to (or spoof of) the sexploitation horror films of the late 60s/early 70s, it is something much more.  Director Anna Biller uses Brechtian tricks -- mainly the stilted vocal delivery of all characters but also the slow dreamlike pace – to get us to detach from the events at hand and ponder her aims.  And to her credit, these are not obvious nor simplistic.  Samantha Robinson stars as Elaine, the Love Witch of the title, who has fled San Francisco for a small Northern California town where she begins making candles and witchy objects and hooks up with an occult community (treated as a sizable minority in the town).  After the breakup of her marriage (we see her husband dead in flashback, seemingly after drinking a spiked drink), Elaine wants love and uses sex magick to try to get it.  Unfortunately, the men she lures do not respond as she had hoped – although they are keen for lovemaking (and self-objectification on Elaine’s part), they soon turn into needy emotional messes.  She may not have gotten the spells exactly right – or so she thinks. Soon, the police are after her – but he is certainly a hunky detective and she reels him in.  Despite its nudity and sex, it is easy to read this as a feminist film.  For one thing, it is told from Elaine’s point of view; she may not be aware of the inadequacy of sexualizing herself to achieve the love she wants – but viewers are; and other characters explicitly discuss women’s roles (and do not think it is to please men, first and foremost, as Elaine suggests). Beyond this, the film has many fanciful and surprising scenes (again with the quality of a dream) although some might feel it drags – but you’ve got to be impressed by Biller’s talents (she wrote, directed, edited, and did the production/costume design).