Oddsac is described as a visual album by Animal Collective and Danny Perez. It comes in DVD sized book pack containing caption-less photo collages that look like the result of a school project under the working title such as ‘Why I like Being Psychedelic’ .
Aside from members of Animal Collective, the cast list is headed by characters named Oozegirl (Kat Stroot) and Oozefigure (Kellie Jo Tinney) and according to the cast list also features a mother, father , five “SE kids”, four “foodfight girls”, one dog (Molly Durga Dibb), six characters called ‘fire’ and one fire coordinator.
The movie was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010 and is the result of four years of collaboration between the band and maverick film director Danny Perez .
Perez cut his video-making teeth with another electronic/noise band from Brooklyn, Black Dice and first worked with Animal Collective on the video for Who Could Win A Rabbit? in 2004. He has also directed the video for Summertime Clothes.
Do not expect to see an extended video here, however. In fact, you shouldn’t expect anything linear either . Someone described it as a “non-straightforward surrealist romp” which sounds about right.
The only remotely plot-driven sequence comes near the end where AC’s John Dibb dressed as a vampire rows a canoe towards a family choking on hot marshmallows and proceeds to consume one of the kids before melting in a fiery mess when the sun comes up. The band, and Perez’s, love of gore and low-budget horror comes through in such scenes (one of their all-time favourite movies is Texas Chainsaw Massacre).
There are some recognisable songs, i.e. tunes with lyrics, but this being Animal Collective you must make of them what you will. Mr Fingers, for example, repeats the lines :”Is there one sweet one that I must reach for then I’m done? /Is perfection a place, or just a glimpse at hard work’s face?”.
About half of the 52 minute playing time might work purely as audio pieces but the remainder consists of strange sounds and weird noises to accompany the equally strange and weird visuals.
The whole thing is a sensory overload and probably a piece that would work best as a video installation rather than a free standing film. I’m a big fan of Animal Collective’s music, but this movie stretched my patience . There are some interesting ideas and cool sounds but as an amorphous whole it struck me as too artificial and self consciously arty .
Related articles:
Creators Project – background interviews and clips of movies that inspired ODDSAC
Sight & Sound review of ODDSAC
What Happened? – Mark Beaumont of The Guardian bravely attempts a scene by scene guide.
