Over the course of the film’s 111-minute runtime, the already fraught bonds between Elle, Billy, and Lamina are pushed to their breaking points, all while Stokes struggles to manage and hide his increasingly concerning stomach problems from the institute’s other occupants. During their residency, they are monitored and interviewed by Stones (Makis Papadimitriou), a man who has recently begun to suffer from deeply painful build-ups of gas within his intestines. When the film begins, the institute, which is run by Jan Stevens (a devilishly funny Gwendoline Christie), has just taken in a trio comprised of Elle di Elle (Fatma Mohamed), Billy Rubin (Asa Butterfield), and Lamina Propria (Ariane Labed). Surrealistic performance art IFC Midnight, 2022įlux Gourmet is set in an institute devoted to promoting and nurturing artists who specialize in culinary and alimentary performances. But by committing so fully to the matter-of-fact nature of his story, Strickland manages to imbue Flux Gourmet with a Lynchian sense of surrealism, one that makes watching the film feel less like you’re falling into a dream and more like you’re entering a world where dreams have seeped into reality. Everything is presented in a straight-faced manner that calls to mind the work of several other contemporary film surrealists - namely, Yorgos Lanthimos. The film’s characters are never judged for their crudest actions, nor are their various kinks or provocative tendencies ever made to seem strange. Rarely, if ever, does Flux Gourmet stop to explain itself, and while another director might have chosen to make the film’s cast of characters the members of an underground movement, Strickland chooses to let them play in the sun above ground. Written and directed by cult British filmmaker Peter Strickland, the new film plays squarely by its own rules from start to finish, digging deeper and deeper into a world where performance art, food, sexual politics, and shame-inducing bouts of excessive flatulence (yes, you read that correctly) all intersect.
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