Climax Review
R: Disturbing content involving a combination of drug use, violent behavior and strong sexuality, and for language and some graphic nudity
A24, Vice Films, Rectangle Productions, Wild Bunch
1 Hr and 36 Minutes
Writer/Dir: Gaspar Noé
Cast: Sofia Boutella, Kiddy Smile, Roman Guillermic, Souheila Yacoub, Claude Gajan Maull, Giselle Palmer, Taylor Kastle, Thea Carla Schott
In the mid 1990's, 20 French urban dancers join together for a three-day rehearsal in a closed-down boarding school located at the heart of a forest to share one last dance. They then make one last party around a large sangria bowl. Quickly, the atmosphere becomes charged and a strange madness will seize them the whole night. If it seems obvious to them that they have been drugged, they neither know by who nor why. And it's soon impossible for them to resist to their neuroses and psychoses, numbed by the hypnotic and the increasing electric rhythm of the music. While some feel in paradise, most of them plunge into hell.
First thing’s first that I will admit before anything else moving forward in this review: I’ve never seen a Gaspar Noé film in my life. I’ve never seen Enter the Void, have no interest in Love, and have seen bits of Irreversible. My expansion of world cinema didn’t click until 2017. That said, holy fuck does Gaspar Noé know how to throw a party. You thought Todd Phillip’s Project X was the craziest party film ever made? Climax makes Project X look like a 13-year-old’s birthday party in comparison.
The stylistic flavor Noé infuses in his direction is infectious and it shows throughout. The film opens well - 9 minutes in, after a retro, home video-styled prologue. Its second round of studio logos appears with an amazingly choreographed dance number that is one long continuous shot that continues even after the sequence concludes. The Step Up franchise wishes it had this much flavor in their direction, let alone their choreography. To accomplish a oner is notable, but what truly makes a tracking shot special in my opinion is action going on throughout a shot. The film is filled with insane tracking shots and is all set primarily in interiors similar to Alejandro Inarritu's Birdman. Each pan and tilt within the extensive corridors is filled with enough chaos that you just find yourself analyzing everything occurring on screen. This is the definition of the term “feast your eyes,” for each sequence is a visual buffet.
The angles Noé shoots the dance sequences from are incredible. There is a dance sequence shot entirely from a high angle that is so captivating, I kind of got nostalgic. I was waiting for Lannette from Big Comfy Couch to appear and deliver her Clock Stretch (only 90s kids would understand that joke), for it has the exact same energy.
I even love how the narrative structure is as bananas as the film, for you never know when it begins, each segment of opening titles appearing after the movie supposedly started. The experimentation with the incorporation of endings and credits throughout adds another layer of insanity.
Since the film features a shit ton of characters whose names you’re definitely not going to remember during the narrative, I appreciate how the film opens with the aforementioned home video montage of all of the characters expressing their love of dance while displaying their personalities. You know who the drug addicts are, the violent ones, the crazy ones, the sex-crazed ones. Even if there are way too many characters, the way Noé establishes his characters is creative and makes for a better time when they interact and personalities collide.
When you finally see these people acting like themselves... that’s truly the heart of the entertainment. Early on, you get the notion that everyone is a garbage person and that no hint of character development will occur, but that’s part of the charm. Noé expresses how inherently shallow the human race is and, given a specific environment under a certain situation, true Darwinism will be unleashed.
It’s so hard not to immerse yourself in the film’s never-ending energy. You’ll find yourself bopping your head and tapping your feet while feeling so stressed out due to the framework that complements the movement of the dancers. I’m relatively weak to music, for it entrances me so seductively, but mix that with Lord of the Flies-type insanity and you have a crazy time on your hands.
As the film descends into madness and chaos, the beautiful framework follows suit. This is the fulfillment I found lacking in Suspiria where it felt confined and contained, while this just goes balls-to-the-walls the insane and just keeps getting madder like a Lewis Carroll novel.
During the gossip segment of the film, while entertaining in the same vein as a VH1 reality series, there are conversations between characters that go nowhere. It relatively foreshadows what is to occur as the story plays out, but it does take a lull. I know this is a French film and they’re not so censored when it comes to sexual content, but personally I could’ve done with less sex talk. Granted, it gets you blushing and saying —
— at their descriptions of sex, but since this is from a director whose previous feature was pretty much a 3D softcore porno, I found it unnecessary to have scenes linger on the subject.
Gasper Noè’s Climax might be the most fucked up thing I’ve seen in my entire life, but it’s a huge reminder of why I love cinema, for it delivers every reaction imaginable with skillful direction and dance sequences. No experimental genre film featuring dancers can top this. Also, it makes me not want to attend a party for a while because witnessing this was adrenaline enough.
Rating: 4.5/5 | 90%
Super Scene: Opening number.
