‘Flux Gourmet’ Director Peter Strickland On Why Farts Don’t Have To Just Be Funny
Mary Beth McAndrews
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In the world of Peter Strickland’s newest film Flux Gourmet, food is an instrument. Rockstars don’t wield elaborate guitars or impressive vocals. Instead, they play blenders full of vegetables, boiling pots of liquid, and even smear unrecognizable substances all over their bodies. This is a world where collectives build around culinary sounds. It’s cutthroat, competitive, mean, and disgusting. And somehow Strickland makes it beautiful.
But, Flux Gourmet isn’t just about stardom. It’s also about the journalist who follows one such group during their residency as he discovers he has Celiac disease, or he’s unable to process gluten. Strickland pairs these two storylines together in a surprisingly touching tale about gastrointestinal pain and massive egos.
We sat down with Strickland to discuss his latest film and how he made farts more than just a silly gag, as well as our shared love of garlic.
DC: So my first question for you about Flux Gourmet is where did this incredible wild idea come from?
Peter Strickland: It was a bunch of things. I wanted to explore the life of a band, but that did not do your typical kind of rock and roll. I wanted to look at the whole creative process, especially with financiers. But I think mostly what really came through was wanting to look at the stomach, how the stomach turns against you, and how food that most of us find pleasurable can be a poison for other people. Just to take something that, you know, we normally associate with frat boy humor and skits and so on, and look at it in a more solemn fashion. I guess I just wasn’t aware of anything that was doing that. I might be wrong, I’m not sure, but I haven’t seen anything.
DC: I was curious what it was like approaching gastrointestinal issues and writing about them. What was that process like for you?
PS: Well, it’s all context. So yeah, I mean, the symptoms you had in the right context where someone [farts] on purpose to disrupt the class or does it at church, it’s great fun. But if it’s someone who has this acutely and chronically, and it affects their lives, then I think it’s just a very different context. You put yourself in that kind of room with those characters. You gotta share the same space as them and how do you hide? It’s all about hiding really. And Stones’ job is to be invisible and document everything which suits him down to the ground.
He wants to hide and the noise that the band makes served a purpose for him to hide his flatulence. What was interesting for me was when the film came out in festivals back earlier this year, it was a divisive film. But even with some of the good reviews, I felt they weren’t quite getting it; it was never meant to be funny with all the flatulence. The guy’s clearly having extreme discomfort. I’m not gonna wag my finger and say, “you shouldn’t find farting funny”. All I’m doing is offering another perspective.
You know, I’m not trying to claim myself as some kind of gastrointestinal Ken Loach. But, I think if someone says they can talk about something they couldn’t talk about before, I’m very touched by that. I think taboos are interesting when they can be some kind of catharsis for someone. I’m not interested in taboos when it’s just about shocking someone for the sake of shocking. But if a taboo destigmatizes something, which shouldn’t be a stigma, that’s interesting for me. With the stuff I’ve done with Flux Gourmet or The Duke of Burgundy, where you are trying to de-stigmatize consenting adults, having sexual pleasure. That, to me, is a taboo worth looking at.
DC: I love that you have that conversation happening in this really detailed world that you’ve created with food being music. This is what art and rock stars look like nowadays. And that to me was where the comedy came in. What was it like to build this world that you created with Flux Gourmet?
PS: Well, I know that world very well. I have been in those types of bands. Anyone who’s been in the band knows there’s so much dramatic mileage in that. So I think the humor to me is there, it’s not with the stomach. It’s all that ridiculous ego, power play, and all that rivalry, and so on. You find that not just in bands, but in everything; on film sets and politics, especially politics. <laugh> I just wanted to have this very toxic environment without knowing what my opinion is, so it’s not clear who side I’m on. Because they all behave badly.
DC: So there are these incredible moments where the band is performing with food. You have dancing and blenders and bubbling, everything. What was the process like to orchestrate these food performances that are so beautiful and kind of gross to watch all at the same time?
PS: A lot of it was Fatma [Mohamed], to be honest,
DC: She’s incredible in this movie.
PS: Yeah. She’s always incredible. I think that is really down to her. Fatma is a contemporary dancer. Her main work is in Transylvania in theater and in dance. I gave her some rough guidelines. So I think with the tomato soup abattoir performance, we spoke about the captive bulk pistol, which is what they used to stun cattle and pigs. She was mimicking that with a microphone. The problem is she kept doing it for real. You don’t have to do it for real. <laugh> you can fake it with you the sound a bit later. That’s the thing is she gets so into it, you’ve kind of lost her.
I think so I gave her a few guidelines in the blender. I didn’t really have so much to do with that. We just followed her doing it. Then, the chocolate mouse, my only instructions were, “Here’s here’s a tub of, well, what the audience will think is excrement. You have to smear yourself with it. How you get from A to B is your journey. It, I’m not gonna tell you how to do it”. When filming, she always wants music. I think I played Mezbow for the tomato performance. And when we did the chocolate moose, we did Luigi Nono. She really keys into the music I’m playing. She goes into this other zone really.
DC: Wow. That’s incredible. What was it like, then, working with her and the other two bandmates? While they all don’t like each other, they have really good chemistry at the same time. So what was it like creating this toxic bond between these three actors?
PS: Well, it helped that we all lived together.
DC: Oh, that’ll do it.
PS: <laugh> That was very much the pandemic that made us live together. We had to form a bubble. So we actually lived in the same house where we shot the film. I think in a way, even though it was a very short shoot, it was only 14 days, we all kind of became part of the furniture.
DC: It’s gorgeous.
PS: It was a good place to sleep, I say, yeah. [The actors] didn’t know each other before. We didn’t have a great deal of rehearsal time, probably like three or four days of rehearsal time. But, again, I think the fact we had the evenings together. Asa [Butterfield] would play his bass Makis [Papadimitriou] would play guitar. I think just naturally stuff there was a shorthand between the three of them.
DC: Okay. So I’m pivoting here from the actors, but what is your favorite food? If you had to pick your last meal, what would it be?
PS: Probably baba ganoush. I’d be easily pleased. It’s great. The way it’s kind of grilled with the aubergine and slightly smoked. I tried to make it, but I just can’t make it, Idunno what it is. I love Mediterranean food, North African food, Israeli food, you know, that whole region. Hummus, olive oil, that’s it. I’m very, very happy with that.
DC: I love that.
PS: What about you? I’m curious. Tell me your favorite food.
DC: My favorite food. Okay. So my favorite dish of all time is just mashed potatoes,
PS: Really?
DC: I think it’s because my mom makes really good mashed potatoes. My go-to final meal is a really good steak, mashed potatoes, and Caesar salad. That’s it.
PS: But the mashed potatoes is that with butter or gravy or sour cream?
DC: Garlic with butter!
PS: Oh, garlic. I didn’t hear the garlic bit. Right. Okay.
DC: That’s my go-to comfort food close. Second is a greasy pepperoni pizza. I know it’s gross, but it just comforts me.
PS: Fair enough. I forgot about the garlic. I think that’s why I love hummus and baba ganoush because of the garlic.
DC: Garlic is my favorite food. If I really think about it garlic might be my favorite food. I could just eat cloves of garlic, but probably not the best idea.
PS: Yeah. It’s interesting. A lot of people, not everyone, but a lot of people have autoimmune issues, especially with Crohn’s they struggle with garlic or onion, anything.
DC: Oh, I know my worst nightmare.
PS: <laugh> yeah, no, it’s, it’s very sad when yeah. It’s so many foods you just can’t eat.
DC: My final question for you is not food-related, unfortunately. But if you could schedule your perfect double feature with Flux Gourmet, what film would you pair with it?
PS: Well, I’d have to go for a food film. Babette’s Feast or Tampopo.
Flux Gourmet is available now on digital and VOD.
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