“I wanted to make it a horror movie, and then something weird happened: people started to be funny. Said Noé at the press conference, the concept was the “shooting of a film that doesn’t work out very well.” He also had a notion to explore the history of religion. While Guadagnino’s beautifully shot, luxurious, Italy-set short feels like a fashion show brought to life, Noe’s is something else entirely. Lux Aeterna is one of two medium-length, fashion-fueled productions showing in Cannes, the other being Luca Guadagnino’s collaboration with fashion house Valentino. The film began in February when Noé received a call from Anthony Vaccarello, artistic head of fashion house Saint Laurent, asking if he’d like to collaborate 10 days later Noé had an idea and accepted. Set during the troubled production of a film, the story captures the battle between a volatile director and a producer trying to either sabotage or take control of the movie, and depicts a group of actors pushed beyond their limits. The film climaxes in a brightly colored triptych of writhing, struggling witches burned at the stake, for perhaps as long as 10 minutes, as ear piercing sounds and pulsating, strobe-like images transfix the viewer-a thrilling and unforgettable endurance test. Shot in a widescreen format that intermittently divides the screen into thirds, the film sometimes shows the same scene from multiple vantage points at once. Lux Aeterna had started as an even shorter movie, but it expanded quickly. I exited the cinema alongside Noé and when we got out into the bright sunlight I turned to greet him, and he responded warmly as I asked him about the origins of this new film. Smiling broadly and seeming a bit giddy, Noé said that he had made the film a month and a half ago.

He had apparently been standing and filming the screen and audience with a small camera. As I stood to leave, I realized that Noé was behind me. I was seated in the back row of the theater and had watched the film all the way through the credits. Following the mesmerizing final moments of Gaspar Noé’s new, 51-minute Lux Aeterna here at the Cannes Film Festival, I was surprised to immediately encounter the director himself.

Gaspar noé movies and tv shows