Saturday, December 1, 2007
Film Anna Biller in Torino
Posted by Jonathan Rosenbaum on 12.01.07 at 01:46 PM
Two of the more interesting programs that I saw at the just-concluded Torino Film Festival consisted of films by LA filmmaker and Cal Arts alumnus Anna Biller, who writes, directs, stars in, designs the costumes and sets for, and sometimes helps to perform the music in her films, none of which has a distributor at this point. Her first feature, Viva (2006), is a pastiche of 1970s soft-core porn, theoretically reconfigured to support a woman's viewpoint--an interesting curiosity, but a bit long for my taste (at 120 minutes, longer than any '70s soft-core flick that I'm aware of), and perhaps not sufficiently aware of its own grotesqueness to qualify as either a critical commentary on its elected genre or as a wholly convincing entry in that genre.
I found her program of earlier 16mm shorts more interesting: Three Examples of Myself as Queen (1994), The Hypnotist (2001--her only film in which she doesn't act and which she didn't write herself, written instead by her partner and frequent collaborator Jared Sanford), and, above all, A Visit from the Incubus (2001, see photos), a 27-minute horror-western-musical that I regard as her masterpiece. (It's worth adding that all her films apart from The Hypnotist contain musical numbers; Viva virtually ends with an homage to the opening number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which is also referenced in Les Demoiselles de Rochefort.)
All her films are fascinated with kitschy decor and costumes, and all of those that Biller stars in are clearly dress-up fantasies (Three Examples of Myself as Queen is especially evocative of Jack Smith, albeit with somewhat better production values). But only A Visit from the Incubus carries the full force of what appears to be a personal allegory. Biller's wild-west heroine gets ravished every night in her nightmares by the demonic incubus until she decides to apply for a job singing at the local saloon--where, as she eventually discovers, the incubus is doing a song-and-dance routine of his own. But his number bombs with the rowdy cowboy audience, while hers--which visually suggests Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood--brings the house down, routing the incubus for good.
Comments (13)
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VIVA screened in Chicago this summer as part of the Chicago Underground Film Festival. Biller's got a real eye for color, that's for sure--she designed the sets herself, and they're eye-popping.
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An excerpt from A Visit from an Incubus is available on You-Tube: The Saloon. It's worth a view, also The Hypnotist. Thanks.
Sigh, it's so good to have a real film critic blogging here again. Welcome back, Mr. Rosenbaum! And thank you for putting the spotlight on films and filmmakers that aren't already talked about in hundreds upon hundreds of blogs and forums (Southland Tales, Beowulf, No Country for Old Men, blah blah blah). Whatever happened to Mr. Jones? I miss his updates on the world of cinema.
Thanks for asking. In addition to writing reviews, I edit the Reader's weekly film listings and festival coverage, a job that precludes much blogging during the fall and spring festival seasons.
Dottie: Don't you mean a Communist traitor to his religion and his country who doesn't support his own people and supports the enemies of his religion and America? And what is it you hate about ordinary people who work for a living? What is it you hate about our free enterprise system and love about Communism? And how big was your celebration on Sept. 11?
Mr. Rosenbaum Its off topic but i have a question for you. A friend, whose opinion on cinema i do respect, works in the industry and he was raving about Paul Thomas Anderson's new film "There will be blood". I was just wondering what your opinion on it is if you have gotten the chance to see some of the advanced showings at film festivals. All is films have been intriguing but my freind says that he finally has made a masterpiece. There is a lot of hype around it right now but i just wanted the your opinion since you keep yourself out of the hype machine. Thanks in advance.
To Puya Yazdi: I'm sorry to say that I haven't seen it yet. I was off at the Torino Film Festival during the two previous press screenings, and am currently waiting for another.
I'm no expert on this subject--I haven't seen several major ones--but I like An Actor's Revenge and Alone on the Pacific.
Zionist, are you kidding? What the hell are you talking about? If a person thinks critically of American foreign policy that makes him a Communist? Who flings around the label Communist anyway these days? Who are you - Joe McCarthy? Are we back in the 1950s? . . . And why does respecting the lives of Palestinians make you a hypocritical Communist? I mean, come on, grow up. I'm sure you're smarter than you make yourself seem. If you're really not - and you are in fact as dumb and ignorant as you present yourself - then I'm sorry I've asked you all these questions that may require you to use your head and think about things rather than behave like an ignorant, knee-jerking reactionary.
