Lux Aeterna

In 2019 Gaspar Noé was commissioned to make a 15-minute commercial for Yves Saint-Laurent. Somehow, Noé being Noé, it turned into a 51-minute faux verite satire on moviemaking, with Beatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg nominally playing themselves on the set of a postmodern witchcraft movie, “God’s Work”. Dalle is apparently the director, but behind her back the producer and DP are scheming to have her fired – leaving the star in a difficult position (burning at the stake, in fact). Like Vortex, the film is shot predominantly in split screen, and its largely improvised, but it’s also top and tailed with seizure-inducing stroboscopic lights interspersed with references and citations to some of Noé’s favourite filmmakers. Not for everyone, admittedly, the film is buoyed by the witty self-portraiture of the two stars, and by the director’s characteristically go-for-broke taste for trouble making.

Distills Noé’s talents to a more palatable serving size… a savvy indictment of the commercial industry and a wry comedy about filmmaking’s collaborative nature.

Eric Kohn, IndieWire

DP Benoit Debie, who has worked with Noe on all his features since 2002’s Irreversible, sanctifies the material immeasurably, with gloriously lapidary lighting schemes and swooping, soaring movements that always make Noe’s films feel so kinetic. He has a particular knack for shooting women so as to make them look stunning but also natural and even a little freakish at the same time.

Leslie Felperin, Hollywood Reporter