I counted only one audible fart in "Flux Gourmet," which seems a curious show of restraint for a movie in which sound and scatology play such important roles. A wondrously demented study in creative, sexual and gastrointestinal struggle, this latest art-horror-comedy whatsit from the Hungary-based English filmmaker Peter Strickland unfolds at the Sonic Catering Institute, a fortress of higher learning devoted to the "artistic pursuit of alimentary and culinary salvation." That's amusingly high-flown language for a bunch of performance artists who stick microphones in pots and pans, amplifying the sounds of bubbling stew, sizzling oil and whirring kitchen appliances (and sometimes smearing icky, sticky foodstuffs on their bodies).
But then, the union of high and low, of sensation and intellect, has always been central to Strickland's own obsessions. For the better part of a decade, he has been an impishly inventive B-movie pasticheur, paying elaborate homage to long-neglected horror subgenres in "Berberian Sound Studio" (2012) and "In Fabric" (2018), and investing the fleshy delights of old-school European erotica with a romantic soul in "The Duke of Burgundy" (2014). His connection to the artists in "Flux Gourmet" — or "feckless faux-provocateurs," as one character describes them — feels especially personal. (Strickland himself played for many years with the Sonic Catering Band, whose food-based electronic music makes up much of the movie's soundtrack.)
The trio of artists here, selected for a prestigious three-week residency at the institute, form a culinary collective whose deep internal dysfunction can be summed up by their inability to come up with a name. But their individual monikers are pretty clever, starting with their stubborn leader, Elle di Elle (get it?), who's played by the sublimely commanding Fatma Mohamed, a Strickland regular. Elle squabbles a lot with her more genial bandmates, Billy Rubin (Asa Butterfield) and Lamina Propria (Ariane Labed), punk-rock technicians who handle the microphones while their fearless leader writhes onstage in all her naked, sauce-smeared glory.
