Various: Woodenhead soundtrack

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * *)

Florian Habicht's film Woodenhead is, by all accounts, an ambitious and different piece of work in the landscape of local movies. The soundtrack was created before the visuals — a collaboration between Habicht and composer Marc Chesterman — and in the movie characters "speak" their lines without opening their mouths. Not having seen the film — which was shown at the recent Auckland and Melbourne film festivals — means this paintbox of songs and dialogue (of what sounds like a bent fairytale) must be taken at face value. There's doubt

less a strong synchronicity with the images because tracks such as the slightly eerie

Maidenwood evoke a dark journey, the mournful cello on Tremolo creates a useful melancholy, and Forest suggests a bizarre circus which the narrative hints at.

The sounds range from quiet folk to disturbing electronica in the manner of early Foetus Productions (Goerdel) but because many of the tracks (such as the minimal percussion of Drums and Bass) obviously only make sense with the pictures, this is not a sonic play-let of the film. The narrative is not discernible but the gloomy, Mervyn Peake-likedialogue and occasional disconcerting pieces of music whet the appetite for what sounds like a slightly unnerving cult flick.

Label: Woodenhead