★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Directed by Gaspar Noé
Controversial, visionary, avant garde, those are just some ways to describe filmmaker Gaspar Noé and Lux Æterna definitely reinforces those characteristics.
Opening with a quote about the joy felt just before an epileptic seizure, the film features Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg as themselves on the set of a film that Béatrice is directing called “God’s Craft”, a highly stylized film about women/witches burning at the stake. Waiting on set the two women discuss their past roles, “either you’ve been a beauty queen or burned at the stake”, working with prick directors and God as the production begins to unravel around them.
The film began as an ad for the luxury French fashion house Saint Laurent (and still features the amazing clothes) but morphed into a film about filmmaking that debuted at Cannes- how many commercials can say that! The split screen format with often overlapping dialouge in French and English coupled with the powerful strobing effects make this a hard film to physically watch, but I still really loved watching it! I think I’d watch Dalle and Gainsbourg do just about anything and at only 51 minutes, there is no reason not to.
Lux Æterna will be available streaming on Amazon, Google Play, Vudu and more Friday, June 10. You can pre-order the film now on Vimeo on Demand.