Lux Æterna review: Gaspar Noé makes an art-film freakout out of a fashion ad

Only Gaspar Noé, the arch-provocateur of French film, would make a fashion ad like Lux Æterna. The film was commissioned by Saint Laurent. It is 51 minutes long and features a witch-burning scene. At the end, it ends in a throbbing, sound-filled nightmare with strobing lights and sound. The film might make audiences feel exhilarated or amused but it won’t leave them wanting to spend a thousand on a handbag.

They will certainly feel like they’ve just watched a Gaspar Noé film. Director Gaspar Noe loves unconventional movies and extreme content, which he enjoys getting a boost from critics and audiences. He made his name with 2002’s IrréversibleThe drama was told in reverse chronological sequence and focused on an extended, graphic rape scene. It was followed by the first person, disembodied head trip. You can enter the Void. Then, he cast porn performers in In love, a navel-gazing erotic drama, so he could shoot unsimulated sex scenes in 3D — including, naturally, an extreme close-up of a penis ejaculating directly at viewers’ faces. The idea is obvious.

Noé is one of the most self-mythologizing auteurs in the world, and sometimes it can seem like the most offensive thing about his films is how desperately he wants them to shock audiences. However, he does have undeniable talent. His sleazy, lurid, neon-lit aesthetic, crafted with his regular cinematographer Benoît Debie, has a seductive, decadent glamour. This is what Saint Laurent wanted. And he’s a master in the edit suite, where he invariably finds unusual ways to assemble his meandering footage and startling images into cinematic crescendos that can leave the heart racing.

Lux Æterna (which means “eternal light” in Latin) is a loose, real-time backstage drama about a movie production that’s spinning out of control. Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg, both icons of Gallic cool, play versions of themselves: Dalle has cast Gainsbourg in her first film as director, about a medieval witch burning, but is struggling to control a chaotic set. The producer is conniving behind Dalle’s back to replace her with the director of photography. Gainsbourg, distracted and harassed by journalists, makeup artists, and a young would-be director, gets an upsetting phone call from home just before she’s due to shoot the crucial stake-burning scene. Things get a little chaotic when the back-projection and lighting rigs malfunction. Really freaky.

The most infuriating part of the film is the very beginning, where Noé chooses to lecture the audience by displaying old film footage (from Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1943 witchcraft drama Day of Wrath) and fancifully typeset quotes about film as art from Dreyer, Jean-Luc Godard, and others. A Dostoyevsky quote about the pure happiness that epileptic people experience before a fit foreshadows the seizure-inducing display Noé is going to put on later. This should warn viewers with sensitive triggers to the flickering light that they should switch it off.

Image: Yellow Veil Pictures

The self-regarding intro is followed immediately by a delightful passage where Dalle & Gainsbourg have an unscripted conversation on the set and share their wild anecdotes. Dalle was a wild child sex icon in the 1980s after she was part of the erotic drama. Betty BlueShe has become a formidable, leathery force in nature. She is irresistible with her snarky rants, raspy laugh, and gap-toothed smile. Gainsbourg, daughter of the scandalous lounge singer Serge, is languid and stringy, with a model’s frame, a careworn face, and a flintiness in her eye. She’s simply one of the coolest people alive. It’s a privilege just to watch these women shoot the shit.

This passage, along with the backstage dramas, farce, and quarrels that ensue, is strangely reminiscent only of an episode. Get in touch with me!The Netflix comedy-drama about Parisian talent agencies is called ‘The Netflix Comedy-Drama. Everybody who has ever been a part of French acting has made an appearance as themselves. Get in touch with me!, including both Dalle and Gainsbourg; Dalle’s episode is a particular delight. The show is frothy stuff, but as a portrait of how the French film world sees itself, it’s pretty acute, and it’s also always on point when it comes to the treatment of women in the industry.

Image: Yellow Veil Pictures

This seems at least partly to be Noé’s topic here, too. He wisely steers clear of any discussion between Gainsbourg and Dalle about their experience with rueful humor. He also subjected them to an indignity and undercutting by attention-seeking men, until they snapped. Dreyer, who made the film-within-a-film), he points out. The Passion of Joan of Arc, one of the great masterpieces of silent cinema) got his “wonderful” shot of a tormented woman burning at the stake in Day of Wrathhe left her chained to the device for 2 hours. Gainsbourg makes the call to her about her daughter, while Gainsbourg watches as a prop of a disembodied man’s torso is placed in front of Gainsbourg; Gainsbourg looks absently at its bulky mass as she talks.

Throughout, Noé uses split-screen to give viewers two simultaneous views of the action. Sometimes it’s two angles on the same scene; sometimes the view splits into two roaming handheld shots, conveying the layered chaos of the production. Sometimes one of the shots may be filmed by an assistant who is asked to record mistakes and follow Dalle. The leering intrusion is being commented on, but it’s also all up there on screen.

As Lux Æterna The screen builds up to its dramatic wig-out finale. Gainsbourg is seen writhing in pain in the middle of the frame, while an unidentified male voice exults in it. Noé makes his point — and gets his shot. He has his cake, and enjoys the ride. You’ve watched the women burn at the stake until your eyes bleed. Buy the gown.

Lux ÆternaNow in Theaters