Hello my Darling Readers, and Welcome to another Magical Media Analysis!   Today’s topic is The Love Witch, the 2017 Anna Biller film about a modern-day witch looking for love.   Although the film is modern it has a very candy colored 60s aesthetic utilizes throughout!   The film follows Elaine, the titular Love Witch who had an ambiguous past with her husband’s death.    I am going to break down the different types of magick that are used in specific ways within the context of the film.    So each will have its own small section, as the plot is very much concerned with her magick.    In many ways, her magick is the plot itself!

Love Magick: In her own personal estimation, being a Love Witch is exactly her defining characteristic.   At the very beginning of the film, we see that she has her deck of Tarot cards.   The Three of Swords card is the most visible.    The meaning of the Three of Swords is associated with heartbreak, unrequited love, the inability to move on from lost love, and jealousy.   This is the ideal card to foreshadow Elaine’s mental state and the events of the film!   She freely uses love spells to empower her artwork and inspire the romantic overtures of many men that she meets.   Elaine has a lot of very old-school and traditional views on masculinity.   This plays into how her love magick unravels.   Her magick works incredibly well to make men fall for her and become obsessed, but she loses all interest when the men become overly sensitive and emotional.   These are men not behaving how men should, they are not “manly enough” anymore!   I think it works well as an indictment of women in the 1960s having a high level of internalized misogyny, in that they were evolving to want many levels of freedom, but still have a very traditional view of gender roles.   It is very interesting in this context, as it likewise serves to illustrate how dangerous love magick is.   This is a very intense level of “be careful what you wish for.”   In the case of Elaine, when she becomes disgusted by the men’s overly “feminine” behavior, she ends up killing them!

Sex Magick: Related to her love magick, is a large amount of sex magick that has been used.   She uses love magick to seduce men and beds several men to secure their love.   This is a way of blurring the lines between love and sex magick.    She is essentially using sex magick as love magick when she beds each man because she intends to ensnare their love but the actual magick is of a sexual variety!   There is a very important scene relatively early on in the film that shows Elaine crafting a Witch’s Bottle.    She puts inside the bottle a tampon filled with her menstrual blood.    This seems rather disturbing to many viewers, or so I have heard in reviews, however, those of us who have studied folk magick traditions know that this was a common occurrence historically.   I never found the scene gross because I knew the magickal context behind it.   I really enjoyed this sex and love magick Witch’s Bottle that contained menstrual blood, as it was an impeccable touch to add some old-school traditional witchcraft into the plot!

Glamour Magick: As usual, my favorite form of magick used in the plot is what I will be discussing last.    Given how much I love Faery Magick, it will not be surprising that I also adore Glamour Magick, as they are incredibly entwined.   Glamour is a very Faery type of magick in general.   It is the usage of energy to create an aura of protection or of sexual allure that will be projected outward to the world.    This was often used in Faery folklore in order to actually fully alter someone’s appearance, or the appearance of an object, to fool the viewers.    In The Love Witch, Elaine used Glamour much like she used the rest of her magick.   It is in the desire to ensnare the attention of men.   The most iconic example of Glamour from this in the film is when she is seducing Wayne.   The sparkling around her and the obsessive interest in the lining of her jacket that Wayne has is how we are shown within the scene that he is being Glamourized by her magick!    So, Elaine is an expert at entwining Love, Sex, and Glamour Magick to make her will come to pass!

~I hope that you have enjoyed this overview of the magick used in the 2017 film The Love Witch.    I did not go over every single spell, as many of them were love spells that repeated earlier points, but I do think I was able to give a rounded overview of how magick was utilized!   It is a film that takes many pains to be rooted in real-world magical practices, while also showing the ramifications of misusing magick.    This gives a balanced view of how magick can be realistically utilized along with a warning not to abuse magick!    Have you seen this film?   Did you enjoy the way magick was interpreted?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is the poster of the film.  I found the image on https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3908142/.

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Further Watching

• The Love Witch (2017)