In the cult favorite Viva, Anna Biller takes the ‘auteur’ concept to the next level.
In addition to starring, writing, directing, editing and producing the film, she also wrote the music, painted the paintings, designed and made the costumes, and created the production design, down to sewing the pillows for the sofas.
She puts these efforts into a high-concept, evisceration/satire of the sexual revolution of the ‘70s – or, at least, the male-gaze version of it. And she does it by dropping us right in the middle of it. She plays Barbi, who is abandoned by her husband, then dragged into trouble by her girlfriend, who spouts women’s lib as she gets Barbi to discard her bra and go out on the town. Barbi becomes a Red Riding Hood in a sea of wolves, and quickly learns a lot more than she wanted to about the different kinds of scenes going on in the wild ’70s, including nudist camps, the hippie scene, orgies, bisexuality, sadism, drugs, and bohemia. Barbi succumbs to all of it, yet (hilariously, we’d say) doesn’t seem to enjoy a second of it.
Viva is a highly stylized film that draws on classic exploitation cinema and vintage Playboy magazines for its look and characters. Saturated to the hilt with vibrant color, and exquisitely detailed in its depiction of the period, Viva looks like a lost film from 1972, even down to the campy and self-assured performances, the big lighting, the plethora of negligées, and the delirious assortment of Salvation Army ashtrays, lamps, fabrics, and bric-a-brac (again, most of it created by hand by Biller).
Whether you’re looking for naked people dancing, alcoholic swingers, stylish yet painfully awkward sex scenes, a sea of polyester, Hammond organ jams, glitzy show numbers, white horses, blondes in the bathtub, gay hairdressers, or psychedelic animation, Viva has it all.