Flux Gourmet

... 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.

This is perhaps the craziest and most incoherent piece of cinema I have ever watched. My first instinct is to recommend watching this movie on some kind or narcotic or psychedelic, but in forethought this movie almost convinced me I was already on one.

At first I thought it was just me, and that as a Canadian I didn't understand the humor. That maybe it was taylored for a British audience or something? But I've watched faulty towers, Mr. Bean, The Office and so forth... and that's not it.

The longer you watch, the less funny it gets. I can endure and even find some toilet humor funny, but this film was obsessed with repeating the same mindless jokes over and over again... and I must confess I couldn't make it to the very end. I had to turn it off before I developed a serious headache.

If you want to go on the wildest confusing and messed up ride of your life, skip the Iowaska and magic mushrooms and watch this.

A sonic collective who can't decide on a name takes up a residency at an institute devoted to culinary and alimentary performance. The members Elle di Elle (Fatma Mohamed), Billy Rubin (Asa Butterfield) and Lamina Propria (Ariane Labed) are caught up in their own power struggles, only their dysfunctional dynamic is furthermore exacerbated when they've to answer to the institute's head, Jan Stevens (Gwendoline Christie). With the various rivalries unfolding, Stones, the Institute's 'dossierge' has to privately endure increasingly fraught stomach problems whilst documenting the collective's activities. Upon hearing of Stones's visits to the gastroenterologist, Dr Glock (Richard Bremmer), Elle coerces him into her performances in a desperate bid for authenticity. The reluctant Stones (Makis Papadimitriou) uts up with the collective's plans to use his condition for their art whilst Jan Stevens goes to war with Elle over creative differences.

"Flux Gourmet" originally started as a satire on artists and their complex relationship with the institutes that fund their work. To remain neutral and look at both perspectives offering both sympathy and ridicule. Whilst exploring the month-long residency of an art collective that deal with food, the film is interested in the idea of taboo and shock value in art, which in this context opened up the dark side of the stomach and the bowels. This eventually led to the story of a man in the institute suffering from very private and embarrassing stomach problems, the kind of problems many people suffer from, but are sometimes too embarrassed to mention even to a doctor. We've often feel frustrated with cinema's ignorance of allergies and intolerances, which are often portrayed as comedy, particularly when someone's face swells up from anaphylactic shock.

Though there are no allergies or anaphylactic shock in "Flux Gourmet", the film treats stomach problems responsibly, whilst still pushing the boundaries of taste wants to explore coeliac disease for 'Flux Gourmet' and treat all the symptoms methodically. At first, with all the mention of flatulence, the audience might think this is a comedy, but we soon realise that this is serious and we never hear a single fart throughout the film. All the deeply embarrassing problems are never shown. We only hear the character mention them in solemn voice-over, yet there's humour elsewhere with the gender and creative conflicts between band members and the institute. It's clear by the end of the film that having coeliac disease is not the end of the world for the character and people can easily adapt to it, that audiences will understand the disease more instead of thinking it's a 'fad' and thinking a coeliac sufferer won't have any stomach problems if he or she eats gluten.

Also, a lot of emphasis is on the fear prior to diagnosis. The influences for 'Flux Gourmet' are Robert Bresson's films with his solemn and almost religious voice-overs, Rob Reiner's 'Spinal Tap' for the rock n' roll clichés, the Viennese Aktionists for the corporeal shock value and Marcel Marceau for his mime work. The time and place are not specified in order to enhance the film's dream-like nature. Ultimately, through the use of performance art and avant-garde music, the film reveals a very human story about problems that people are often too embarrassed to talk about, but many of us can relate to regardless of how healthy or unhealthy our stomachs are. Within the seriousness, the film also presents a somewhat silly world exploring.creative conflict, rejection, power and the dilemmas facing both artists and their patrons.

Written by Gregory Mann.

"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.