| Susan Foreman | 14th May 2021 09:51 PM |
' VIVA' (2007) - WORLDWIDE BLU-RAY PREMIERE pre-order available from Shameless direct - £16.00
Release date: 31 May (but shipping from our store NOW) "Bored 70’s LA housewife gets sucked into the sexual revolution. Abandoned by her husband, she goes out to find herself in the middle of the swinging Playboy-era sexual revolution. Looking for love and adventure, she explores modeling, prostitution, bisexuality, bohemia and ends in a climatic orgy – all in a color-soaked tribute to the period’s sexploitation films.
Shameless raises the curtain on the 70s sexual revolution with The Love Witch director Anna Biller's exquisite tapestry reimagining the titillation of the era. Defying the preconceptions of so-called skin flicks, VIVA (2007) is underpinned by bold and cheeky irony, yet the dead-pan tone never passes any moral-judgement.
Barbi, played by Anna, is a bored Los Angeles housewife who yearns for a life beyond suburban ennui. After a quarrel with her husband, she reinvents herself as Viva, and dives into an odyssey of sexual liberation. Encountering swingers’ clubs, brothels and psychedelic hippy communes, her awakening climaxes in a spectacular drug-fuelled orgy!
This world's first Blu-ray release of VIVA, made with HD materials provided by the director herself, we're proud to do justice to this exquisitely detailed film and its eye-popping production design, inspired by period Playboy magazines.
ANNA BILLER’S VIVA DIRECTOR‘S STATEMENT
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.
To create a distinctive look for VIVA, I looked through a bunch of decorating books and magazines, some vintage Playboy magazines, and some late 60’s films. I would tear out magazine pages, absorb the atmosphere, daydream, and then write scenes based on what I imagined was going on in the different ads and cartoons, or design sets based on the weird rooms or movie scenes I saw. It’s a very psychedelic and colorful film, but that’s the way the 70’s looked, even in suburbia. All that acid green and yellow, all that orange, brown, blue, purple, and red.
The most difficult thing about doing this film was directing while acting half-dressed and…IN THE NUDE! I was copying the sexploitation genre, so I felt I had to do the nudity, especially since my co-star opted out of it. I’ve always been terrified of nudity, so it was good therapy to get over the trauma and just do it. My shyness comes through in the film, making me seem like a victim, although I am in control as the director. So there’s this weird split. It’s very far-out."
Special features and specs: - Worldwide Blu-ray debut
- 'Orgy-O-Rama' action sleeve
- Audio commentary by Diabolique magazine critic Heather Drain
- Unique behind the scene photos from the Set
- Director’s own behind-the-scenes featurette
- Theatrical Trailer
- 1080p HD
- Cert: 18
- Run-time: 123 mins
|
