Lux Æterna [Gaspar Noé, 2019]:
As someone not ordinarily attuned to this filmmaker's particular wavelength, I know how easy it is to be put off by Noé's more juvenile provocations. Climax (2018) was a real surprise for me, especially since I'd been left underwhelmed and somewhat incredulous by the experience of his earlier works, specifically I Stand Alone (1998) and Irréversible (2002), but Lux Æterna confirms something that even those early provocations have always suggested. For all of his tricks and gimmicks, or his attempts to shock and appall, the truth is, there's no other filmmaker challenging the conventions of cinema and experimenting with the language of film and film "form" as consistently and successfully as Gaspar Noé.
This film, Lux Æterna (or "Eternal Light"), strikes me as one of the filmmaker's greatest works. An epilepsy-inducing, strobe-lit, split-screened, "live at the witch trials" for the post #MeToo era, which through extended dialogues and arresting imagery, aims to explore the marginalization, abuse and exploitation of women in the context of a film about filmmaking (and with the added bonus of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Béatrice Dalle, two of my absolute favourite actors.) At 52 minutes the film doesn't outstay its welcome.
