The Substance as Feminist Horror Art Film

Coralie Fargeat's film 'The Substance', awarded at Cannes, is analyzed as an art movie with heavy visual references to pop and contemporary art. The film, starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, uses a citational logic that evokes artists like John Baldessari, Tom Wesselmann, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Edvard Munch, Francis Bacon, and the ancient Roman two-faced Janus. The production design by Stanislas Reydellet features saturated moquette floors, graphic tiles, and a plasticized Beverly Hills. Key scenes include a gelatinous body stump crawling onto a star on the Walk of Fame, referencing Rubens' 'Medusa' (1618); an illuminated vacuum cleaner recalling Koons' New Museum sculptures; a fly drowning in chardonnay echoing Hirst's death chambers; and blood-smeared faces screaming like Munch's 'The Scream'. The film's final transformation into Grand Guignol horror aligns with Bacon's distorted portraits. The article, written by Aldo Premoli, refrains from judging the film's social or gender messages but highlights its enigma-like entertainment over 140 minutes.