“What is this shitty music?” says Ana Klimova waking up to tinny French pop playing on from her ‘70s-styled chunky clock radio. Lighting a cigarette, she immediately swaps it for a cassette blasting out Cerrone’s disco-tastic ‘Supernature’ and starts dancing around her tiny flat in a reverie. It’s a joyous opening to The Shock Of The Future, Marc Collin’s slight but affectionate look at the birth of electronica and a tribute to the women who played a pivotal role in bringing it to life.
Much of the film’s 78-minute running time takes place in Ana’s bedsit. Struggling to compose music for a commercial, she is obsessed at expressing herself through electronic beeps but just can’t nail the sound. In pretty much every frame, often on her own, Jodorowsky (granddaughter of director Alejandro) makes Ana’s creative tussles engaging as she struggles to find her music (when she does, it has shades of ‘70s John Carpenter) while dealing with constant interruptions from sexist men; her producer who kisses her too many times; the music equipment specialist who presumes she is a backing singer. Yet things really click when singer Clara (Clara Luciani) arrives to record the jingle. A lengthy, engaging scene in which the pair work together to craft Ana’s song captures all the supportive energy of women collaborating.
But as much as it is about gender politics, it is also about a transitional point in music, as the old guard clung onto traditional instruments and song structures in the face of emerging technology and styles. Collin, one half of French music duo Nouvelle Vague famed for creating bossanova versions of ‘80s synth classics, lavishes loving close-ups on Ana’s banks of machinery — the Roland CR-78 beatbox gets the kind of attention Quentin Tarantino reserves for bare feet — and gives key artists from Suicide to The Human League their due in needle drops and name checks. It lacks narrative drive and doesn’t approach anything near big drama but The Shock Of The Future is valuable in its portrait of the pioneering role women played in the electronic movement, a dedication at the end saluting Delia Derbyshire, Wendy Carlos, Éliane Radique, Laurie Spiegel and others for their invaluable work. And — obviously — the soundtrack is killer too.