MQFF REVIEW: Who's Afraid of Vagina Wolf? (2013, Dir. Anna Margarita Albelo)

Avant-garde comedy film maker Anna (Anna Margarita Albelo) is turning 40. She's stuck in a rut. She's stuck in her friend's garage. She's also stuck in a larger than life vagina costume. She's got a list of things to do by the end of the year: get a girlfriend, make a film and lose 20 lbs. She's had the same list for quite a few years now.

One night, while presenting a collection of her shorts at an art gallery, in her vagina (please note comma use), Anna meets hot, young art student, Katia (Janina Gavankar) who gets all muse-y up in her business and inspires her to finally write, direct and self-produce her feature film debut. This very quickly (after a montage of inspiration and cigarettes) takes the form of new version of Edward Albee's play, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?", just with vagina inserted in the title and, well, just about everywhere else.

Who's Afraid of Vagina Wolf? has that uncomfortably self conscious tone of a film maker taking a little too much inspiration from her own life and spreading it across the screen as cinematic self-examination. It works well here because Anna, despite her cringe-worthy self-obsession, is someone you'll want to root for. She's not a prissy primped up star, she's more the barrel-bottom-scraping type, down on herself, lacking confidence and with serious mummy issues (that take the form of constant phone calls from Miami).

There are more than enough laughs to keep the film rolling amongst the personal catharsis. As you'd expect form a film with a walking vagina suit, the comedy is broad and there's a heavy flow of lady-bits jokes, but there's also a fair amount of drama, and not just in the over the top Burton/Taylor ripoff that they are filming, rather cleverly I might add. Albelo and her cast mix the highs and lows with aplomb. There's still a very makeshift-vanity-project feel to the film but it all feeds well into the self referential comedy.

The wallowing tone gets a little much as the film presses on but it never overwhelms and Anna's eventual breakthrough snappily brings the film out of the doldrums. She should have you grinning before the credits roll.

Vagina. Vagina. Vagina.

★★★

Trailer:

Who's Afraid of Vagina Wolf? screened as part of the 2014 Melbourne Queer Film Festival.