Madness Is On The Menu In ‘Flux Gourmet’ [Trailer]
Mary Beth McAndrews
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Peter Strickland is a visionary horror director whose films such as In Fabric and Berberian Sound Studio have shocked and entranced audiences. Now, he’s back with a film about art, food, and jealousy entitled Flux Gourmet.
The synopsis for Flux Gourmet is as follows:
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 have to answer to the institute’s head, Jan Stevens (Gwendoline Christie). With the various rivalries unfolding, Stones (Makis Papadimitrou), 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 puts up with the collective’s plans to use his condition for their art whilst Jan Stevens goes to war with Elle over creative differences.
Watch the trailer for Strickland’s latest:
There’s a lot going on both in the synopsis and the trailer, but it all looks simply scrumptious. Flux Gourmet has Strickland’s signature aesthetic flair but is seemingly taken to an even weirder extreme with the inclusion of the culinary arts.
In his director’s statement, Strickland said:
“Flux Gourmet originally started as a satire on artists and their complex relationship with the institutes that fund their work. I tried 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, I became 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.”
Flux Gourmet has its world premiere at the Berlinale Film Festival. It’s slated to come to theatres and digital this summer.
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