Lux Æterna: Gaspar Noé’s Not-So-Light Touch Sandblasts the Senses

By Liam Lacey

Rating: C

Earlier this month, the reliably controversial Argentinian-French filmmaker, Gaspar Noé, released his most empathetic film, Vortex, a film first released in 2021, about an elderly couple dealing with dementia and physical decline.

Most of Vortex was shot using a split screen, with separate cameras shooting each character, even when they were in a conversation in the same room, demonstrating their separation from each other.

Now we have the North American release of an earlier film, running just over 50 minutes, which uses the split screen technique for different purposes. Lux Æterna (Latin for “perpetual light,” a phrase used in the Catholic funeral mass) — which premiered out of competition at midnight in Cannes in 2019 — is both experimental and commercial.

Witches in Saint Laurent dresses are burned at the stake in Lux Æterna

The film is part of a series of works commissioned by Saint-Laurent’s creative director, Anthony Vaccarello, representing “freedom of self expression without censorship.” Other artists who have collaborated with the fashion house include filmakers Wong Kar-wai and Abel Ferrara, author Bret Easton Ellis, performance artist Vanessa Beecroft and photographer Daidō Moriyama.

Noé’s limitations were that the performers, Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg, be associated with the brand, that they wear the company’s clothes and there’s a discernible narrative. Noé chose to make a backstage drama about a film shoot run amok.  The entire thing was Improvised and shot in five days with both Noé and his longtime cinematographer Benoît Debie operating the cameras, often providing multiple views of the same characters.

Both actors play versions of themselves, with Dalle as an embattled director and Gainsbourg as the hired star. They lead a large cast representing the film crew, cast, extras and various hangers-on.

For the viewer, it’s something of a theme-park experience, with the divided screen, and complex lighting and sound design, creating a constant sense of hectic movement. The exception is the relatively quiet first 10 minutes, which consist of the candid and earthy Dalle, on the left screen, drinking wine and smoking in an empty room, with the more reserved Gainsbourg, on the right screen.

They talk about films with burning witches, swap stories about past film shoots and embarrassing lovers and movies about witches. (“Have you been burned at the stake?” Dalle asks. “It’s so chic.”)

The chitchat is entertaining, but ends on a note of foreboding when Dalle claims the producers are out to sabotage her. As with his 2017 film, Climax, about a young dance ensemble who are a happy collective until someone spikes their party punch with LSD, this is a study of a catastrophic collapse of a group.

As Dalle predicted, the producer, Yannick (Yannick Bono) wants an excuse to fire her. He tells the onset videographer to follow her at all times to catch any fireable infraction on camera.  

As well, the pompous cinematographer Max (Maxime Ruiz), who asserts he worked with “Jean-Luc” (as in Godard) so no one can tell him what to do,  is determined to make his own movie.

The project is unravelling from every corner. Gainsbourg gets a call from her daughter’s caregiver because the girl has been hurt at school. An upstart filmmaker from Los Angeles has somehow found his way on to the set, and wants to pitch Gainsbourg for a role. A middle-aged journalist keeps trying to button-hole people on set for quotes. Dalle becomes increasingly unhinged, fighting with everyone. 

Finally, it’s time to shoot some footage: Gainsbourg and two models have to do their witch-burning scene, tied to poles, and posed to resemble depictions of crucified Christ and the two thieves — except they’re women dressed in Saint Laurent (though one of the models, to her annoyance, is partly nude, which she says was not in the contract).

The witch-burning scene seems to have been inspired by Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1943 film, Day of Wrath. The revered Danish filmmaker’s name pops up during the many intertitles using quotes from, Noé’s heroes; The aforementioned Jean-Luc, “Carl F” (Dreyer) and Rainer W. (Fassbinder.) 

Spoiler alert — everything gets spoiled. A stroboscopic light malfunctions and can’t be stopped. As Gainsbourg writhes on the stake in flashing neon blur, the monomaniacal cinematographer keeps yelling out instructions over sounds both shrill and rumbling.  

This continues until the end of the film, and is open to layers of interpretations:  A way of celebrating light as the sculpting material of film?  A comment on cinema’s historic misogyny, a religious vision of the material world transforming into pure energy? 

Some viewers have said they found the ending trance-inducing. In my case, it felt like a tiny hammer banging on my retina for the better part of 10 minutes and I didn’t  enjoy it. (The film, which opens with a quote from Dostoevsky about epilepsy, comes with a warning to anyone who might have a seizure triggered by strobe lights.)

To give Noé’s credit, he used the Saint Laurent fashion money to  practice the split-screen technique which is employed far more movingly in Vortex. He also made the only fashion ad I won’t instantly forget.

Lux Æterna. Directed and written by Gaspar Noé. Starring Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Opens Friday, May 20 in select theatres across Canada.