[2] The piece heavily employs epileptic imagery through grey and color strobes, split-screen, and uses of 1920s-esque documentary footage involving witchcraft and torture.

Lux Æterna begins with a short montage of 1920's style documentary footage of witch torture, which abruptly cuts to actresses Charlotte Gainsbourg and Béatrice Dalle playing fictional versions of themselves.

The women are joined by a producer and assistant, who escort Gainsbourg to her dressing room while Dalle leaves to conduct directorial duties.

Throughout the entirety of Lux Æterna, quotations from filmmakers Luis Buñuel, Carl Theodor Dreyer and Rainer Werner Fassbinder on a director's desire for absolute control are shown on screen.

Midway through shooting, the rear projection screen malfunctions and begins to show the same red, green and blue strobing from The Art of Filmmaking, this time as solid colours.

While Dalle frantically tries to get the projectionist and sound mixers to fix the problem, the director of photography insists that he is still filming and barks orders at his crew, namely at Gainsbourg to continue acting as if she is on fire and to weep for him.

The website's consensus reads, "Stylish but hollow, Lux Æterna represents a frustrating regression for writer-director Gaspar Noé.