Though it's lengthy and doesn't always walk the line between schlock and kitschy homage successfully, Viva's lovely visuals and knowing humor are undeniable.
Though it's lengthy and doesn't always walk the line between schlock and kitschy homage successfully, Viva's lovely visuals and knowing humor are undeniable.
Writer and director Anna Biller takes a swingin' look back at sexploitation cinema of the '70s in this candy-colored comedy drama. Barbi (Anna Biller) is a beautiful but blasé suburban housewife whose handsome mate, Rick (Chad England), is more interested in his career than in quenching his wife's sensual thirsts. When up-and-coming actor Mark (Jared Sanford) and his open-minded wife, Sheila (Bridget Brno), move in next door, Barbi discovers they're more than willing to help her find the thrills
she's been missing. Before long, Mark and Sheila part company, and when Rick finds out about Barbi's extramarital dalliances, he walks out on her. Free to do as she pleases, Barbi changes her name to Viva and teams up with Sheila to join the front lines of the sexual revolution, enjoying assignations with a dizzying variety of partners, including hipster artist Clyde (Marcus DeAnda), psychedelic naturalist Elmer (Paolo Davanza), experimental theater advocate Arthur (John Klemantaski), glamorous lesbian model Agnes (Robbin Ryan), and sexually ambiguous hair stylist Sherman (Barry Morse). But will Viva's appetite for the ecstatic lead her into dangerous and unexpected places? Viva received the "Best of Fest" award at the 2007 Boston Underground Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
It takes skill -- a certain sly, even perverse nimbleness of craft -- to make an homage to schlock movies that treats them as works of art. Viva, written and directed by its star, Anna Biller, could just about be the third featurette in Grindhouse.
The movie pops with parodic joy--in the hoary double-entendres and presentational acting styles--and hotly lighted 35-millimeter cinematography that evokes lounge music album covers and Playboy ads.
The campy early '70s is the goofy gift that keeps on giving in Viva, a mock soft-core sexploitation film that gets a lot right but forgets that less is often more, especially in plaid.
Viva lasts a staggering two hours (the audience does the staggering) and it doesn't merely end up an embarrassing bore, it gets there within a couple of minutes of the opening.
The plywood acting's pretty funny, as is the coy sex; what amazes is the beautifully lurid, near-fetishistic set design. At two hours, it's an in-joke over-indulged, and it's so camp the camera's practically winking, but minor cultdom beckons.
At an epic two hours the stilted dialogue and eye-scorchingly oversaturated film stock threaten to test the patience. But as a self-conscious exercise in kitsch graverobbing, 'Viva' succeeds.
It's the sort of attention to detail that would be admirable in a short film. But in a film that plays out at two hours it's unendurable. Paying ironic homage to bad cinema doesn't suddenly make it good.
Where her film lets itself down, though, is it's simply not funny; you assume that a certain kind of hipster audience may be tickled by all this, but the laughs will be as forced as those that bray out of the screen at all too regular intervals.
At two hours it's basically an extended sketch stretched to feature lengh and by the end the vibrancy of the never-seen-in-nature colours are reaching migraine-inducing proportions.
For all its garish aesthetics, sly feminism and wall-to-wall nudity, writer/director Anne Biller's camp-com is almost too much of a good thing, outstaying its welcome at a paint-drying two hours.
The film is the cinematic equivalent of greeting cards which poke fun at beehive-haired wives getting slippers for their pipe-smoking husbands, with a rude word inserted in a speech bubble. Not funny.
The acting is as subtly, drolly bad as it needs to be. The hairpieces and cheesy background muzak compete for the honour of perfect finishing touch. At two hours Viva is a mite too long. But summer is here: give genius its leash.
This is an arch, knowing exercise in cinematic parody where every line of dialogue seems to come with inverted commas. Stretched over two hours it becomes unbearable.
Anna Biller's pastiche of '70s sexploitation flicks finds its G-spot somewhere between misogyny and feminism. It's a transgressive joy - if somewhat overlong.
Enjoyably trashy pastiche of 1970s sexploitation movies - the colourful production design, terrible acting and cheesy dialogue are all impeccable, but it's at least 30 minutes too long and isn't as funny as it should have been.
Viva is, without a doubt, the work of an artist, as Anna Biller has crafted a painstakingly brilliant replica of a '70s sexploitation film, with all the pros and cons in place.
While this attempt to recreate 60s/70s exploitation films does capture the look and feel of those films, it unfortunately captures the attitudes of the misogynist leisure-suit crowd a little too well. Rape in this narrative is not addressed as a serious problem, but instead as a freaky dramatic thing to happen, from
which characters seem to bounce back from with no psychological recrimination. And once you find out that the woman who stars in it also WROTE it, the fact that every character who graces the screen (even gay men) makes declarations of her beauty and sexiness makes it little more than annoying, narcissistic wish-fullfillment. It's on a par with a 15 year old girl writing fanfiction in which her "Mary Sue" character wins the love of all her favorite movie actors. I'm so sorry I saw this turkey!
December 15, 2010
Jenny Gonzalez-Blitz
A great throwback to 70's sexploitation movies about a bored housewife who decides to explore her sexuality by becoming a call girl. She quickly becomes a sort of Red Riding Hood moving through the sexual revolution. Writer/Director Anna Biller (who also produced/starred and did the costume and set designs) did an
amazing job of re-creating the look and feel of a film from that period, complete with over the top acting, campy dialogue, sex and nudity galore and even a few musical numbers, one of which takes place at a nudist camp. Anna Biller herself even disrobes several times throughout and treats us to a lesbian scene. I had a boner through half the film. Well done, and bravo!
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