![]() She doesn’t want the audience to suspend their disbelief. While each element plays into the horror genre, Biller goes to painstaking measures to make the set design feel fake. Her fashion choices and interior design also showcase her playful, sensual and mystical personality, acting as extensions of her personal philosophy. ![]() Likewise, visual art is an important part of the set design, as colorful, nude women represent female sexuality and act as spiritual overseers to Elaine. In Elaine’s personal space, the clashing Periwinkle blues and crimson red of her house, complimented by red candlesticks, stained-glass lampshades, and graphic portraits evoke an ominous feeling. Arguably, it’s the most important color within the film as it is so directly tied with sexuality, while the specific shades chosen elicit both a campy and otherworldly atmosphere. The satin drapes, leather lounges, and rounded tablecloths are all in red tones that are themselves illuminated by red. Elaine’s oversized sun hat, overdone red blush, painted eyelids, filled-in brows and thick eyeliner, all seem unnatural looking and out of place to the modern viewer.Īs Biller trespasses into male-dominated territory via her films, so does Elaine as she enters a cabaret not as a dancer but as a visitor. Pastel pinks and pure whites dominate a tearoom conversation between Elaine and Trish ( Laura Waddel), as cakes, wine glasses, teacups, and velvet chairs fill up the corners of the screen. The set design, particularly in Elaine’s house, is purposely cluttered with a myriad of complimenting and contrasting colors whose shades audiences particularly associate with the 1960s. Instead, to properly emulate this era, Biller utilized a rear projection as a reference to The Birds’ opening scene which adds both a sense of Silver Age glamour while appearing technologically outdated. In the opening scene, as Elaine drives to her new hometown, she doesn’t simply wear a red babydoll dress, pale-blue eyeshadow, and has her hair styled in a messy beehive. The set design, costumes, and color were all meticulously chosen to evoke retro sensibilities. What is most striking about The Love Witch is its unusual cinematic style, as it recreates the 1960s not as a mere period piece but as a style of cinematography. This is the Female Gaze in action, both as criticism of the Male Gaze and its refusal to accommodate male audiences. A female villain who embraces and utilizes her sexuality without shame and to the detriment of male characters, trespasses into the taboo. Biller is aware that audiences, especially male ones, find female villains particular disturbing. The sexual element isn’t for the pleasure of the viewer, but a necessary plot point that seeks to question and deconstruct the male way of filmmaking. Biller purposely forces the audience to feel ashamed and vulgar for intruding on her, rather than sexually satisfied. Whether alone or with a partner, this intimate look at Elaine reminds the audience of their voyeuristic nature. But her abilities and allegiance to witchcraft cast a villainous light, especially as her mystical rituals take on a sexual element. Elaine’s preoccupation with finding a new lover, pleasure, and happiness after the loss of her first husband is her driving motivation throughout the film. Audiences familiar with horror movies and the Femme Fatale trope will immediately insinuate that she was behind her husband’s death and that she is already on the lookout for new victims. Rare for her time, Elaine is a free woman who has left her deceased husband behind to start a new life in Arcata, California. She is a female horror movie villain without becoming a dehumanized monstrosity. Her heart and her desires formulate the film’s central story and themes without being depicted as particularly insidious or barbaric. Elaine acts as both a protagonist and a horror movie villain, with a depth rarely afforded to female characters. She pursues her male romantic interests without hesitancy, despite the morals of the time, and plays into male conceived ideas of women while remaining a victim of their ideology. Elaine Parks ( Samantha Robinson), the eponymous "Love Witch," is the personification of a 1960s man’s worst nightmare a thinking, feeling, financially secure, and independent woman. Aware of the lackluster representation of women in film, Biller deconstructs one of the most notorious female tropes, that of the Femme Fatale. Biller imbues the Female Gaze into The Love Witch as a way of re-contextualizing an aesthetic and filmmaking style lost to cinematic history. Anna Biller’s The Love Witch(2016) is an intoxicating blend of mystical horror, sexual thriller, Technicolor cinematography, and campy designs, in a homage to horror movies and B-movies of the Silver Age of Cinema.
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