Do we still have to introduce Gaspar Noé? Master of total cinematographic experiences, the man stands out within the French film community. After offering us a real horror trip two years ago with Climax, he returns to present Lux Aeterna, a medium-length film shot in record time (5 days, with the support of the Maison Yves Saint-Laurent). The new Gasparian opus proves again to be a success. Focus.
Lux Aeterna: the meeting between two icons of French cinema
Béatrice Dalle is shooting her first feature film, with Charlotte Gainsbourg in the role of a witch who is burned at the stake. In real life, this project would be most enticing for any movie buff. Here, Gaspar Noé lingers for 52 minutes on the nightmarish development of one of the most important sequences of the film. 
Lux Aeterna opens with excerpts from the film by the illustrious Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer: Pages torn from the book of Satan. Then, he lingers on a long improvised conversation between Gainsbourg and Dalle. Cinephile quotes are present everywhere in Aeterna. Whether it's cartoons quoting Dreyer, Godard, Buñuel, or the presence of Barry Lyndon's music, Noé displays the cinema he loves. He confronts him with the suffering necessary to be able to give birth to a work, especially cinematographic.
A nightmarish shoot
As explained before, Lux Aeterna tells the story of a film shoot. To make a film is to succeed in surviving the chaos that is rumbling. In Noah, chaos explodes on all sides. The rookie director finds herself overwhelmed by the situation: backbiting team, producer panicked at the idea of losing all his money, cinematographer who takes power on the set, actors lost, star who loses patience, parasite from outside disturbing the serenity of the shooting… Gaspar Noé has gathered all the elements that can cause the destruction of a project. All the ingredients to cause a nightmarish shoot. Because, yes, shooting a film is hard. And this is what Gaspar Noé seems to reveal to us, in a film that will certainly be seen in all film schools. 
Pure Gaspar Noé
To deliver this nightmare on DCP, Gaspar Noé recalls two of the figures of these last two feature films. Karl Glusman (Love) as a young filmmaker preparing to make his first feature film and looking to recruit the star of the film. Or Claude-Emmanuelle Gajan Maull (Climax) as a makeup artist. Two characters who gravitate around our two main actresses: Béatrice Dalle, brilliant as a filmmaker who loses control, and Charlotte Gainsbourg, just as fair. The meeting between Béatrice Dalle and Gaspar Noé is obvious. One wonders by what miracle it has never happened before. Adapting perfectly to Noah's cinema, we pray to see other collaborations between them in the future. In 52 minutes, Gaspar Noé manages to summarize all that can be horrible in a film shoot. Multiplying long travellings, subjective camera and split-screen, Noé manages to translate the oppression that a young filmmaker can feel on a film set. Before arriving at the apotheosis with an epileptic and kaleidoscopic sequence not recommended for all potentially epileptic spectators. An ending that is not necessarily pleasant to look at, but striking by its formal beauty. Allowing, finally to understand where Noah wanted to go: beauty cannot be created without suffering. Seen at the Renc'art festival organized at the Méliés cinema in Montreuil. Trailer Lux Aeterna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9MpkMtVhME
