I didn't get offended by it in the least.
Biller, thankfully, is not QT. She doesn't try to pull the wool over her audiences heads and say "look how clever I am" when just about ever shot a line of dialogue comes out of another movie.
Viva actually is a very respectable piece of work. Considering we live in a world of mini-DV DIY hacks, it was really pleasing that she shot the film on 35mm.
The period decor is well done considering the budget.
The story seems right out of any Joe Sarno film: a bored housewife finds sexual liberation costing her her marriage to a somewhat uncaring chauvinist. Realizing, once her husband is out of the way, that the single swinging life has much, if not more to offer than the married one, our heroine goes on a series of sexually charged misadventures ending in a climactic orgy.
This is, as Gainsbarre pointed out, clearly a Metzger affair. Biller even duplicates the brilliant shot from Camille 2000 in which the camera focuses back and forth between a beautiful white flower (the specific variety of which I cannot remember) and Daniele Gaubert's panting. Here Biller has replaced the flower with, of all things, a bright red apple and substitutes Metzgers' perfect scope composition for an adequate matted 1.85:1 frame.
While it could easily be argued that Biller is poking just as much fun at her source material as QT claims not to in his "homages," I really feel that Biller loves these films and instead of merely trying to copy them, Viva is serving as a cinematic love song to her favorite works and the period in American culture she so clearly holds dear.
Sure, replacing a beautifully metaphorical object such as a flower with an apple that looks like it was swiped off a fairy tale teacher's desk might appear rather insulting, but hey, no one in the audience I saw the film with got the reference though they were all entranced by the shot and, just as is the case with Camille, that scene is the highlight of the film.
All of that said, unlike Metzger, Biller does not know when to bow out and let the closing credits roll and the film is at least 20 minutes too long. Scenes that should run half their length drag on and on for ages. Erroneous subplots waste 5 minutes here and there. Once we finally arrive at the colorful orgiastic conclusion, we've forgotten who the "mystery man" is supposed to be and nor do we really care. Viva feels very much like what it is: an exploitation film made by a sincere art student.
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