Sometimes an idea just feels right. In 1998, for example, the environmental anxieties of the late Clinton era gave us the dueling comet-hits-earth blockbusters Armageddon and Deep Impact. Nearly a decade later, the economic and cultural woes of 2007 ushered in the feel-good pregnancy scare dramedies Juno and Knocked Up. As for today… well, there is so much going on right now that it will take a better sociologist than myself to untangle it, but somehow the warped cultural psyche of 2022 has given us its second auteur-driven, gross-out, body-horror-tinged art world satire– so I guess it hasn’t all been for nothing.
Not many directors could pick up the gauntlet thrown down by David Cronenberg with Crimes of the Future, but if anyone’s up to the challenge it’s Peter Strickland. Strickland, of course, is the British director behind such cockeyed fantasies as Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke of Burgundy, and In Fabric– which, if you’re doing the math, makes him one of our oddest working filmmakers. Strickland’s latest, Flux Gourmet, imagines a performance art scene every bit as strange and sick-making as Cronenberg’s, but the sensibility is entirely his own– and, as outre as the proceedings are, anyone who has ever dabbled in the arts will likely find the film hits uncomfortably close to home.
In Flux Gourmet, Strickland introduces us to the high-stakes world of “sonic catering” a non-existent form of performance art in which atonal music is extracted from the energy waves of food as it’s being prepared.* Through the eyes of a Greek journalist known only as Stones (Makis Papadimitriou), we are introduced to Elle di Elle (In Fabric standout Fatma Mohamed), the magnanimous leader of an as-yet-unnamed sonic catering troupe and recipient of a prestigious residency at a hallowed culinary institution for the arts. Elle is both a riveting performer and a raging diva, and even given apparently free rein to follow her muse, she is beset on all sides: by docent Jan Stevens (Gwendoline Christie), who gushes about artistic freedom even as she nitpicks Elle’s performances; by her bandmates/technicians, shy Cockney punk Billy Rubin (Asa Butterfield) and sharp-tongued Lamina Propria (Ariane Labed), both former lovers of Elle and both thoroughly sick of her shit; and by the Mangrove Snacks, a rival band of sonic caterers who had also vied for the residency and who retaliate through an escalating series vandalism attacks (frequently involving their signature ingredient, a dead turtle). Then there’s Stones himself, whose chronic flatulence threatens to endanger his fly-on-the-wall status– and to draw him into the art scene he’s been assigned to cover.
Nobody makes movies quite like Peter Strickland. His aesthetic– garish colors and squelchy synths inspired by the 1970s BBC– and the serene manner in which his characters deliver their stream-of-consciousness absurdity make his work as distinctive as that of any filmmaker currently working. Flux Gourmet is not a “horror” movie in any real sense of the word– there’s no supernatural element, only a few notable acts of violence, and not even really a villain per se– but it’s difficult not to get an uneasy feeling while watching it, as if you’re stuck in an alternate dimension and surrounded by madmen.
Yet as funny-strange as Flux Gourmet is, it’s also funny-ha-ha in a surprisingly accessible way. Sonic catering may be no more a real artform than the bespoke organs of Crimes of the Future (or, for that matter, the staged auto accidents of Crash), but anyone who’s spent any time in or around the art world will surely recognize its archetypes. Elle is the picture of the artistic enfant terrible, as given to bombastic proclamations of her own genius as she is nakedly self-serving and petty. Jan Stevens is every meddling patron of the arts, trumpeting the artistic freedom of her charges while also insisting that they need to tone down the flange effects and alter their performance if the group is to be taken seriously. And, as a writer, I couldn’t help but feel a little targeted by frequent digressions in Stones’ narration away from the subject at hand and toward his own gastrointestinal distress. Strickland’s visual style may be a far cry from the faux-verite naturalism of Christopher Guest, but he has a similar eye for lovingly tweaking and skewering the pretensions of an insular subculture.
Another similarity between Strickland and Guest is that both filmmakers understand the power of a strong stock company. Chief among Strickland’s collaborators is Mohamed, who has appeared in each of the director’s films to date, but takes center stage here for the first time. Mohamed is an ideal vessel for Strickland’s dialogue, able to deliver reams of utter nonsense with genteel intensity (a quick scan of her filmography reveals that she has appeared almost exclusively in Strickland’s films; I would love to see her in more, but I also kind of appreciate the fact that she seems to exist solely in this strange little world). Just as well suited is fellow Fabric holdover Christie, whose statuesque presence and posh elocution make her seem like an Edward Gorey caricature even before Strickland dresses her in a series of increasingly outrageous gowns and headwear. Strickland writes and directs like he’s from another planet; that he is able to surround himself with actors so skilled at effortlessly bringing his fantasies to life feels downright supernatural.
But for all its archly mannered dialogue and truly disgusting visuals (to say nothing of the sound design, which feels like it could be the work of Berberian’s Gilderoy), Flux Gourmet is, at its core, a deeply felt and at times surprisingly moving look at the creative process. Elle’s performances are ridiculous, to be sure, but they are also perfectly functional as the real deal, and it’s not that difficult to imagine an actual scene springing up around them. The creative disputes feel particularly authentic, and anyone who has ever engaged in the collaborative arts will have little doubt that they are based on Strickland’s real-life experiences (In one of her interview sessions with Stones, Lamina sighs, “We hate each other, even though we do need each other,” which is a fairly succinct description of roughly 95% of creative partnerships). And for all the layers of postmodern artifice, there is a sense that Strickland genuinely likes his characters and wants to see them work through their troubles, from Elle’s artistic struggles to Stones’ medical and social anxieties. This is what separates Strickland’s work from empty camp: as outwardly nonsensical as his screenplays are, it’s clear that he means every word.
* – As a writer for a weirdo music webzine, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that there are a number of real-life composers and musicians working in comparable media; British experimental composer John Lifton, for example, created an installation in the 1970s entitled “Green Music,” in which electronic music was generated by the “brain waves” of plants (thus making the plants technically both the composers and the orchestra). Lifton and some of his colleagues can be seen in Walon Green’s The Secret Life of Plants, about which I wrote in this very space earlier this year.
Flux Gourmet
2022
dir. Peter Strickland
111 min.
Screens Friday, 7/15 through Monday, 7/18 @ Brattle Theatre
Also currently available digitally and on demand