Flux Gourmet
Creators of aural delights, of sumptuous sonic banquets, the collective comprising Billy Rubin, Lamina Propria and their leader Elle di Elle, along with journalist Stone who will chronicle their artistic process and progress, have taken up a residency at the Sonic Catering Institute under the direction of Jan Stevens to develop their work in preparation for a series of concerts.
Capturing and manipulating the audio signatures of the sizzle of meat in the pan, the steam rising from a boiling cauldron and the whizz of the blender, with salt clinging to black polished fingernails and olive oil smashed on stone steps the residency becomes a power struggle between the uncompromising vision of Elle and the haughty condescension of Jan who will use whatever methods she feels necessary to ensure her creative choices are reflected in the final performance.
The fifth feature from writer/director Peter Strickland which reunites him with In Fabric’s Gwendoline Christie as the imperious Jan and Richard Bremmer as the cynical and distinctly discomfiting Doctor Glock as well as the enigmatic Fatma Mohamed who has appeared in all his films as the temperamental diva Elle, Flux Gourmet is perhaps his strangest work yet, garnished with toppings luxurious and appetising which conceal layers deliberately indigestible.
A sensory experience engulfing and entrancing, the ambitious and cynical “sonic caterers” pour themselves, their fractious relationships and bitter breakups into the work, and what goes in must come out, the collective sleeping together and rising as one and Stones (Makis Papadimitriou) engaged in a futile attempt to conceal the symptoms of his painful ailments from his associates despite the close quarters they keep.
The technical aspects of the collective’s performance art handled by Billy (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’s Asa Butterfield), he becomes the pawn between Jan, the ice maiden with the panda eyes, and Elle, the artiste for whom no eccentricity is too outré, willing to push herself to extremes and debase herself to gain a reaction, her greatest fear silence from an audience.
Challenging and provocative in its portrayal of a closed enclave of toxic egocentric eccentrics similar to the Berberian Sound Studio, the cracks in the eggshell spreading and spilling bile into dishes not fit for human consumption, Flux Gourmet will not be to every taste and like Strickland’s other works seems more an exercise in style rather than narrative, a journey rather than a destination, but as an experience it is one to be admired if not entirely enjoyed.
Edinburgh International Film Festival concluded on Saturday 20th August
