Viva is the story of neglected suburban housewife Barbi (played by Anna Biller who also wrote and directed the flick), who seemingly stumbles into the 70’s sexual revolution, and then embraces it’s freedom and excess in search of liberation and identity.
The film’s plot is a little meandering, but very faithful to the sexploitation genre to which it pays homage. Visually, it’s pretty incredible with both the art direction (Biller again) and cinematography creating a psychedelic, hyper-color realization of the late 60’s / early 70s.
From the director:
“In the film VIVA, I am reworking old sexploitation movies from the 60’s and early 70’s, from a woman’s point of view. Vintage sexploitation films interest me because they revolve around fantasies of a woman’s power over the male, her beauty, her desirability, her sex appeal. The idea was to make a movie that seems like a sexploitation movie, and that offers up all the spectacle and lurid promise of that genre, while at the same time talking about what women really go through, their fantasies and sexual trials. ”
Buy it on DVD from Amazon » Viva (Unrated-Director’s Cut)
Official site » www.lifeofastar.com.
