The 23rd edition of the Chicago Underground Film Festival kicked off Wednesday with a tribute to the late experimental filmmaker Tony Conrad and continues through Sunday at the Logan Theatre. Following are reviews of seven features making their Chicago premieres this year, plus a roundup of six short works screening in various programs. For more information and a complete schedule, visit cuff.org. —J.R. Jones
The Love Witch This spellbinding ode to exploitation films of the 1960s and ’70s is impressive not only for its mock-Technicolor hues and period mise-en-scène but also for what lies beneath: a creepy and cunning examination of female fantasy. A widowed witch (Samantha Robinson), heartbroken by the neglect of her late husband, moves to a small town and seduces a string of men with love potions as a way to feel adored. Director Anna Biller—who also wrote, produced, and edited the film, and created by hand many of its vivid costumes and set decorations—embraces the melodrama and vampy camp of ’60s horror while also considering the easy conflation of love, desire, and narcissism. Robert Frost once wrote that “love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired,” and Biller’s witch, both liberated in exploiting her sexuality and repressed by her white-knight fantasies, embodies the idea. —Leah Pickett 120 min. Thu 6/2, 9 PM.
Jim Finn’s Chums From Across the Void (Fri 6/3, 8:30 PM) is just the movie for old leftists in need of past life regression therapy. As a crystal bust of Leon Trotsky spins in front of an oscillating wall of electric colors, a voice-over narrator instructs us to give up our corporate capitalist beliefs. You may find all this amusing or annoying, depending on your tolerance for art-school wankery and romanticizing failed ideologies. —Dmitry Samarov
