The strangest coming-of-age story to come out of Eastern Europe, 1970’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is like Alice from Wonderland suffering from erotic night terrors. A young girl traipses around the woods surrounding her house and discovers monsters, vampires, and lesbians. At one point, Valerie is witness to a sadomasochistic scene between her grandmother and the neighborhood priest. It’s “Cuckoo Cuckoo” stuff, and the film left such an imprint with AnCo pals Broadcast that they wrote a song called “Valerie” on their indispensable Haha Sound. This surrealist fantasy also boasts an acclaimed score by Czech composer Lubos Fiser.
Geologist: Just the idea that I don’t have to know what’s happening in a film. Like, I can remember being on a New York City bus and talking about ODDSAC. Originally that was supposed to start out as a concert film and we were going to put experimental vignettes or whatever you call them in between just for fun. I remember there was something like, “Well, don’t we need something to tie it all together?” Dave and I were on one of those intensely crowded busses on the way to the practice space and just being like, “You know, there are so many movies that we don’t know what is going on in them that are amazing to watch. Instead of calling this thing a film, let’s just call it a visual album.”
And as pretentious as that may sound, we can look at these things as inspiration. Like Hausu or Possession or Color of Pomegranates or Spirit of the Beehive: We don’t know what the hell they’re really trying to say fully, or what the plot is, but we like them the same way that we can just put on a record and listen to a record whether or not there’s lyrics that we understand. That was a very liberating moment with ODDSAC where we were just like, “We can do whatever the fuck we want. As long as it’s enjoyable to watch.”
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