An affectionate send-up of 60's and 70's sexploitation schlock, Viva is the brainchild of star, writer, director, producer, editor Anna Biller. Word has it she also catered the film, drove the actors to set and held the boom while simultaneously acting in front of the camera. I'm only half kidding. But it illustrates a problem with the film which is that with one person assuming so many of the key creative roles there's the risk of a loss of objectivity in the creative process and fewer people to hold the tendency towards self-indulgence in check.
Watching Viva, I couldn't help but feel it would have made a great short. There's about thirty minutes of interesting material here stretched out over a two hour running time. Once you get what the film is going for in its beginning act with the intentionally stilted performances, the mod set design, the garish color palette, Viva holds few surprises the rest of the way. That isn't to say the film is without its pleasures. Biller has the look of those films down pat - the aforementioned set design, the cinematography, the hair and makeup are completely evocative of the type of film-making Russ Meyer, Italian director Pasquale Campanile et al. made their names in back in the day. The performances, though, are uneven. Biller is fine as the titular character but some actors (notably the actor playing the hair dresser) do everything but look straight into the camera and wink directly at the audience. There's an art to acting in this kind of satire (see the Planet Terror portion of Grindhouse.
All in all, an interesting addition to what seems to be an emerging trend of films that attempt to revive long dead genres apparently beginning with 2003's Down With Love and then gaining mainstream popularity with Robert Rodriguez's Sin City in 2005.
