‘Flux Gourmet’ Review: A Wickedly Delicious Slice of Creative Process, Egos and Psycho-Sexual Nightmares

Flux Gourmet (2022)

Directed By: Peter Strickland

Starring: Asa Butterfield, Gwendoline Christie, Ariane Labed, Fatma Mohamed

Plot Summary: 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, Billy Rubin and Lamina Propria 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. 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, 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.

Reviewing a Peter Strickland film is always a rather tricky affair. This is not to suggest that that his work is hollow and there is nothing to write about. Rather, it’s difficult because the written word rarely does justice to the wonderfully strange trips that Strickland takes us on. Oftentimes he can take the seemingly mundane in our life and turn them into the fantastical. In Fabric, for example, takes something like a dress and turns it into a stitched together nightmare that I still think about. His latest film is best described as a swirling sexually charged meditation on the creative process and gastrointestinal distress.

Flux Gourmet is a wonderful metaphor for the often dirty and disgusting line between creating art that is a sole and singular vision, but, at the same time often needing others to fund it. This tension between art and commerce is something that is all too real. Here Strickland takes this theme, with madcap glee, to its logical bat-shit-crazy conclusion. Taking this cooking theme and this ingrained idea of womanhood and the kitchen is by no means new, and recontextualizing that idea is done in such an interesting way. Taking this a step further is the egg fetish subplot that is a not-so-subtle symbolism for women’s reproductive system. It’s also perhaps the first movie that has ever tackled bathroom issues like acid reflux and gas in a way that is serious but still fully embraces how absurd the human body is. I can also see this as a challenge to elitism and, in the end, how the characters quite literally eat the rich. Though it’s never clear when this movie is supposed to take place, its messages of womanhood, power, and control are timeless.

As with all his films, Strickland’s visuals here are on point. In Flux Gourmet, we get a very somber and muted palate, but he still leaves room for garish colors to pop. The orgy scenes are a standout, which are presented as a feverish and nightmarish kaleidoscope soaked in blues and reds. Sound design is not only a big theme within the movie’s narrative but also perfectly executed for the audience. This may be the closest thing to an ASMR giallo that we might ever get. Leave it to a genius like Strickland to mix all these themes, styles and auditory soundscapes into one satisfying meal. This film is the perfect combo of 1973’s The Big Feast, Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, with a dash of Deep Red thrown in for good measure. As always, Strickland is able to craft a world that treads very familiar ground but in a way that is wholly new, strange and exciting.

Flux Gourmet is a wickedly delicious slice of creative process, egos and psycho-sexual nightmares all boiled down into a creative dish.

Flux Gourmet opens in select theaters and On Demand on June 24th, 2022.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHraElR_v60]