EATING DISORDER
FLUX GOURMET Peter Strickland’s tale of a culinary collective deserves a Michelin star…
British filmmaker Peter Strickland’s latest curiosity, Flux Gourmet, grew from a very unusual seed. “There’s a frustration how food allergies and intolerances are dealt with [on film],” he says. “You look at [2018 comedy] The Festival… Noel Fielding eats a shrimp and his face swells up. I would never say cancel [it]. But I guess I wanted to make an alternative, really, and look at it more seriously.”
Even in real life, people are reluctant to do so. Strickland (The Duke Of Burgundy, In Fabric) remembers a friend telling him about being on a plane with her son, who has a peanut allergy. “The guy next to him was eating peanuts and she asked him to stop, explained to him why, and he just said, ‘It’s my free right to eat peanuts!’”
While there are no aircraft in Flux Gourmet, it does take place in a contained space – a country house run by art patron Jan Stevens (Gwendoline Christie), who hosts a residency for a “sonic collective”, a radical group of musicians (including Asa Butterfield and Strickland regular Fatma Mohamed) who create performance art from cooking. Recording the sounds food makes, it’s not as weird as it seems. Back in 1996, Strickland was part of The Sonic Catering Band. “We did vaguely similar things,” he says.
The story unfolds as journalist Stones (Makis Papadimitriou) embeds himself in the group, documenting their every move, while suffering from an increasingly embarrassing digestive issue. “Somehow those two things fed into each other: the culinary collective who are interested in shocking people, and suddenly here comes along an unwitting victim who can be exploited. And then it poses all these questions about the privacy of the body and how much of yourself should you reveal for the sake of art.”
Shooting in a stately home near York, with all the cast in one locale, it should’ve been a doddle. “I was told, ‘This is going to be easiest film you ever make,’” recalls Strickland. “And it turned out to be the most difficult film ever.” After four false starts, the production almost collapsed when Strickland’s landlady announced she was selling off his home. “She wouldn’t back off. It was a nightmare.” Once past that, he only had 14 days to film – three less than his 2009 debut Katalin Varga.
Yet none of the stresses show in an artful film that toys with shock value, just as Pasolini’s fascism tale Salò did. Despite featuring scatological moments and even a live colonoscopy, Strickland promises he’s not out to turn our stomachs with body horror. “To me, I get shocked very easily. Extreme violence shocks me. I don’t like it. My films are not that violent at all. Most directors could easily be way more shocking than me.”
‘It poses all these questions about the privacy of the body’ PETER STRICKLAND
FLUX GOURMET OPENS IN CINEMAS FROM 30 SEPTEMBER.