13 January, 2023

Tripping the Eternal Light Fandango

Gaspar Noé takes his intense, extreme style of filmmaking and uses it in a feat of meta self-examination and/or parody.

This is a short film as it clocks in under an hour but it packs a punch. It is filled with camera movement, overlapping dialogue, title cards featuring quotes - this is a very dense movie.

It opens with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Béatrice Dalle on an unused set talking about being a woman in the film industry, about witches in movies, and sharing tales of life on set. When their conversation ends, we are transported onto the set of a movie about witches, specifically a scene where a trio of them are to be burned.

Everyone is bickering and chaos reigns on the set. For example, Dalle is the director and the cinematographer is aiming for her job so they're at loggerheads the whole time. Some aspiring filmmaker is trying to woo Gainsbourg into his project. People are at odds and nothing is going right on the shoot. Interspersed are quotes from the likes of Rainer Werner Fassbinder which emphasize the dictatorial nature of the movie director.

With judicious use of split screen and with flashing lights that seemed like they'd go on for eternity, Noé has yet again made a formally interesting movie. I took it as being parody but one of most stylistically difficult ones.

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