Flux Gourmet

The oddity of the pace and concept wares off about an hour in and feels like it marches on forever without much of a progress or change. Too much repetition, gags go on far too long & at six cycles with little new to add it feels like a bad sketch that drug on too long.

... but not in a predictable manner!

I've still not seen Berberian Sound Studio, but enjoyed Duke of Burgundy and In Fabric, so I was ready for this to be odd, and up there in the "quite like Greenaway" stakes.. As with him, the cinematography is good, and the actor commitment is mostly fine. I really could have done without the flatulent guy though... the sub-plot itself, the voiceover with matching hard-to-read subtitles (white on often-white scenes) and the actor himself were all irritating, IMHO.

Having said that, there's lots to like if you're into arthouse stuff and I'll look forward to whatever he does next...

Worth a look.

"Weird" at the service of a higher cause I can roll with. "Weird" as a stand alone aesthetic usually leaves me cold.

"Flux Gourmet" is a gross and -- for me at least -- an even somewhat incomprehensible film about performance artists. I don't even know -- is "food sound art" even a thing, or was it meant to be a joke? Somewhere in this film is a satire about pretentious people, but it's buried under an off-putting preoccupation with the workings of human bowel systems. I've had a colonoscopy. I don't need to relive someone else's.

This is the kind of movie whose advertising features pull quotes from critics using words like "uproarious" and calling it equal parts brilliant horror and scathing comedy. I must have been watching an entirely different movie.

The best I can say about "Flux Gourmet" is that it has a bold and confident vision, and the director is clearly committed to it. But that's really part of the problem.

Grade: C-

I'm not sure how I got here, probably it being a Peter Strickland film. Who doesn't love that unnerving grainy tone he delivers. This though might push even me a little too far. It's weird. Obviously. The setting is the Sonic Catering Institute. A artistic workspace where a collective have gathered to work with a crank call receiving, pompously controlling, increasingly bizarrely dressed resident director and a somewhat submissive writer, photographer, documentarian with some gastric issues. It's not easy to nail down quite what everyone's purpose is. There's a lot of pretension. A lot of awkwardness. Nobody seems to like one another all that much as they do workshops, endure nightly dinners and sleep in grotty dorms. The collective in residency, made up of Elle, Billy (Asa Butterfield) and Lamina are an art troupe band. Using food as a device for performance art. It's as much about the sound though, with sound sources wired up through vats, pots and blenders, as Elle in the first performance writhes naked in what looks like blood. This is one of the more palatable expressions. I'd like to say it's interesting, well acted. That the narrative is compelling and the characters engaging. None of that is true. What I can say is I like slightly confounding art house indulgence and this ticks that box. It looks good too. Not every frame by any means, but there are several arresting scenes that grab your senses. A Strickland film is rarely an easy watch. He's a director intent on challenge and you'll have to work to enjoy this. If you like something that makes your brain wonder and whirl at what you're watching and why you're watching it though, then Flux Gourmet is worth a taste.

And this film comes down on the wrong side.

I'm OK with weird. I loved Strickland's In Fabric, and was hoping for something equally interesting. Unfortunately, he seems to have thought "I've already turned it up to eleven; what if I turn it up to thirteen?"

The plot, such as it is, revolves around a group of performance artists who indulge in sonic cookery, and who are granted a residence by someone who is as unhinged as they are (in case we miss this, her deranged nature is hammered home by her bizarre headwear. Especially in bed). There's also a sub-plot about flatulence (these may be the most sophisticated fart-gags ever committed to film, but they're still fart-gags) and a rectal examination that also turns into performance art.

Terrapins, a box with knobs on, a rather icky seduction, pretentious references to ancient Greek literature, latex cat-suits (everyone always travels with these, in case they need to indulge in a little burglary, don't they?)

The resultant mish-mash leaves one confused and deeply unsatisfied.

And I would've throttled the doctor MUCH earlier.