You’ve got to give Animal Collective and Danny Perez credit — they warned you. And in the case of "ODDSAC," directed by Perez with music by Animal Collective, it’s a warning you should heed.
The screening at the Varsity Friday night proved an exercise in hallucination and experimentation, and Perez asked the audience to “wipe their minds clean.” In short — this is not the kind of movie you see on LSD unless you’re prepared for a very tumultuous trip.
The film — which its creators bill as a “visual album” — pushes limits, both aurally and visually. It’s an alternately fast-paced and groggy vision of psychedelia, with nightmarish scenes juxtaposing images of nature, childhood, and the fourth dimension. The soundtrack augments this dreamy environ, where scenes vacillate between calm and irrational panic. The film’s most powerful moments occurred in the space between noise and silence, when an otherworldly creature’s footsteps scraped on river rocks as unidentifiable noise resounded intermittently. The band has crafted a mix of fast-paced frenzy and chilling sound bites, from screams to demonic laughter, and this exploration tests the limits of noise, exploring its capability to transform an image into something more sinister.
Horror played the most obvious — if unexpected — role in "ODDSAC." Amidst the grainy, color-changing static and delirious montages, the few recognizable scenes integrated gore, often lurid scenes of daily life gone awry. In one, roasted marshmallows begin to erupt out of a family’s mouths like foam, and a creature inexplicably emerges from the woods to devour a young child. These depictions, though disturbing, remain an effective component of the film — Perez has mastered the art of extremes, and he balances these moments with images of nature and euphoria.
The last portion of the film exemplified its best attributes. As several girls and a masked monster slung paint inside a yurt, the music rose to a fever pitch. It was illogical, puzzling, and ultimately jubilant, a wordless affirmation of unadulterated glee.
By the end of the visual album, Perez and Animal Collective had taken the audience to every extreme possible — from terror to delight, from quiet to deafening noise, from questioning to accepting the lack of reason. In these artists’ world, paint is flung, monsters scream, and there are no constants, and as a viewer, it was an exhilarating (if mystifying) glimpse into another realm.
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