FilmSnobReviews

Title: Lux Æterna
MPAA Rating: Not Yet Rated
Director: Gaspar Noé
Starring: Béatrice Dalle, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Abbey Lee, Karl Glusman
Runtime: 51 mins

What It Is: A meta-fiction framed within the subtext and imagery of witches and witch trials through time and film in a split-screen format. Two famous actresses Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s friendly conversation is followed by neurotic chaos as a messy production struggles to come together. Under the guise of a confused director, the cast and crew scramble to find themselves falling far behind schedule, spiraling into a hysterical effort as the cursed film deconstructs and falls apart before them.

What We Think: Gaspar, Gaspar, Gaspar. Our beloved self-aware titan of experimental, artistic, volatile, hysterical, visceral, psychedelic filmmaking returns to hand us this brief yet ‘frustrated’ piece of work. I’m sure by now if you’re aware of Noé’s reputation, then you’ve heard the buzz around this film.

Yes, it is repetitive, in certain unique senses. Much like his later works, such as Climax, Enter the Void, and Love, much of the film is visually entertaining on its own, uniquely showing different perspectives, some seemingly diagetic, some not, of the production in “real-time” through a split-screen. For some, it may be overwhelming, but for your typical kino-hungry experimental film lover, it’s sort of the equivalent of dangling keys in front of a baby. Shiny. It’s nothing BUT colorful; that, paired with the cinematography from the unmissable and constant collaborator Benoît Debie… you kinda like it. But be warned, Noé for some reason still hates people susceptible to epilepsy (*s), to the extent that flashing colors explode on the screen for what feels like an entire third of the film. It feels familiar to how Harmony Korine utilizes naturalistic filmmaking to deliver absurdist storylines. However, it’s interesting how Gaspar uses his own “Noé-isms” such as extreme and flashing imagery to, in my interpretation, create a “dramatic thriller” that ends up being a sort of black comedy. Let me explain why:

He’s aware a lot of people hate his storytelling and filmmaking. Hell, I might not always find a narrative of his that interesting, smart, or challenging (I Stand Alone… I don’t remember why I really didn’t like it, I think it might have just gone on far too long, and wouldn’t recommend it). Thing is, Noé comes from a long-standing and sneakily successful artistic genre of filmmaking called the New French Extremity movement, a movement I love to study and admire next to Dogme 95 or ero guro, because, well, they just about have the best and the worst movies you’ll ever see. It’s a movement generally meant to challenge, scare, and above all else, disturb viewers with typically darker underlying messages and extreme storytelling. Very NSFW.

Gaspar uses this to his advantage and applies it in an excessive way that almost feels like an admission… if not satire. Perhaps it’s just my perception but the viewing of a messy and idiotic production fall into pieces feels like it’s surrounded by an air of irony and misfortune. An example of this is when an extremely concerning phone call arrives to Charlotte before she’s tied to a cross in runway fashion and forced to stand for too long for one mishap after another. In this, the expressed and annoying frustrations of a film production clashing within itself is taken to a ridiculous extent to where it’s actually sort of funny, in its stride. Almost as if it’s throwing hands up and saying “here’s your m*****f******* movie!”

Our Grade: B-, So, y’know, it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea–but for me, it was a fun little sort of story that felt like a self-aware roast on man’s need to make his mark at others’ expense, whether it’s a witch trial or a movie about witch trials. Not to mention, the cast, in reality, was absolutely fantastic, and magnetic, as always. In the end, I enjoy Gaspar’s playfulness when it comes to experimentation and expression in art.