The Love Witch is pretty easy to summarize. A woman with a dark past, a dark secret, moves to a new town. She uses magic to make men fall in love with her, which never ends well. It doesn't work out well this time either, but she keeps going. Bodies pile up.
The effect of the movie is a different story. It's a high intensity effort to recreate the movies of the past, technically and otherwise. Anna Biller shot on 35mm, which is little used now, and made many of the props by hand.
Then there's the acting. To put it bluntly, nearly everyone in the cast acts badly. But they do so in a way that suggests that they've studied the technique of people who couldn't act 40-50 years ago. Not just dialogue either. At one point a detective "punches" his partner, knocking him to the floor, but it's obvious he just sort of lightly poked the guy with his fist.
But respect Biller for making exactly the movie she wanted to. And know that there's someone in the world who loves old exploitation movies more than Quentin Tarantino does.
The effect of the movie is a different story. It's a high intensity effort to recreate the movies of the past, technically and otherwise. Anna Biller shot on 35mm, which is little used now, and made many of the props by hand.
Then there's the acting. To put it bluntly, nearly everyone in the cast acts badly. But they do so in a way that suggests that they've studied the technique of people who couldn't act 40-50 years ago. Not just dialogue either. At one point a detective "punches" his partner, knocking him to the floor, but it's obvious he just sort of lightly poked the guy with his fist.
But respect Biller for making exactly the movie she wanted to. And know that there's someone in the world who loves old exploitation movies more than Quentin Tarantino does.
2 comments:
The only part I've watched of this one is the trailer and that was enough. I'm not sure what the intent was but in the bit I watched the acting was farcical and the murders more than a little calculated and just plain nasty. You're a brave man for watching the whole thing and then finding something good to say about it.
I meant to tell you before that we recently watched Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid again. As far as mixing old and new and making best use of black and white edits in a contemporary movie, this one is excellent. Among a number of wonderfully classic scenes this one is probably the most famous.
It's a technically impressive recreation of a bygone style. The only indications that it was made in the 21st century are the cars and at one point a character makes a call on a cell phone. Of course whether that's a worthwhile project in itself is...another question.
I still love Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. The only disappointing thing about it for me is that the last use of old footage, the one with Vincent Price, is played so straight you can't find the joke. But it was Steve Martin in his prime, on the move, not yet settled into his elder statesman of comedy role.
Post a Comment