Gaspar Noe’s Psychedelic Mockumentary ‘Lux Æterna’ Might Give You Seizures — Cannes Review

Ever since Gaspar Noé cranked up his ambition with “Enter the Void” 10 years ago, the filmmaker has divided audiences with unruly, disorienting filmmaking techniques.

Frames blink in and out, cameras float and speed through unexpected spaces, and neon palettes pulsate.

His recent spate of movies often yield overwhelming experiences closer to the visceral terrain of avant-garde cinema than the narrative traditions he roots within the mayhem.

His style can be a mixed bag of visual provocations, but his showmanship remains admirable for its bold swings each time out.It’s hard to imagine that Noé could serve any master other than himself, and it comes as no great surprise that his recent assignment to make a 15-minute commercial for Yves Saint Laurent went awry when Noé turned it into his own weird thing: “Lux Æterna,” a 50-minute psychedelic mockumentary about a film shoot gone wrong, distills Noé’s talents to a more palatable serving size.

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