Love that Witch

I learned about The Love Witch (2016) listening to a Projection Booth podcast where director Anna Biller was interviewed. Since I hadn't watched yet (and was driving through some unknown highways), I didn't get much out of it, but it sounded cool. For one thing, Biller didn't just direct - she also wrote, art directed, and sewed most of the wardrobe herself.

It stars Samantha Robinson in the title role. She is leaving LA to go hang in Arcata CA. Since her husband died ("and everyone thinks she killed him" is left to your imagination), she needs to get away. She has a friend in Arcata who rents her a room in a charming Victorian, decorated with mystical paintings. Her friend's friend takes her to a ladies' tea room, all frills and lace. You see, Robinson is a witch.

She performs a spell and meets an English professor, full of Kerouacian cool. They go to his place in the hills, she slips him some drugs, they fool around, he freaks and dies. So sad. She sets her sights on the realtors husband, a decent, righteous man. He kills himself when she gets tired of him. A macho police detective starts investigating her. She takes him to a Ren-Faire-like coven gathering in the woods, where her Wiccan friends hand-fast them. The scene reminds me of the nude grape-stomping scene in Seconds, and the detective is hooked, just like Hudson was. It doesn't work out much better for him.

This movie was made in the style of a 60s-70s technicolor thriller, full of bright colors. The costumes Biller designed are full of polyesters and day-glo paisleys, and Robinson wears the heavy eye makeup and piled up hair of the period - but it isn't a period piece. People drive modern cars and have cell phones. So it's a retro feel. It was even shot on 35-mm negative film.

But it is the story that is so unnerving. Robinson is a femme fatale, a black widow, but she only wants a man to pamper and fulfill. So she's in some ways anti-feminist. But her female-centric earth religion empowers her - she wants to pamper and fulfill a man so she can control him and bend him to her will.

Now, I have Wiccan friends. I have been to a hand-fasting. In some ways, this movie seemed like, not blasphemy, but religious bigotry. The Wiccans in Arcata have friends in high places, are feared by the townspeople. And they look pretty goofy, especially the male side of the leading couple, a chubby bearded fellow with a slimy leer. You can tell why he practices sex magic. Suppose these were Jews, not witches.

But, hey, they aren't Jews, and witches I've known have a pretty good sense of humor (although still a little sore about the Burning Times). The rituals can be pretty goofy. And no one can deny Biller sense of style.