Climax review: Gaspar Noé returns to Cannes with promises to shock once again, and while the impact isn’t as jaw-dropping as some of his previous efforts, this new one is still quite the trip.
Climax review by Paul Heath.
Climax review
A new Gaspar Noé arrival always comes with a certain degree of expectation, along with a huge amount of trepidation. While you never know what to expect, you always know that you’re in for a work that is a little bit different, possibly something very extreme, and always something truly unique. Every one of Noé’s five feature films have debuted in Cannes, and this one arrived to a bleary-eyed audience during director’s fortnight on a Sunday morning – and if you saw the filmmaker’s last film – the sexually explicit Love (in 3D, no less), you can’t help but guffaw at the programmers’ positioning.
The movie revolves around a troupe of dancers who have holed up at a location to complete their final rehearsal for a new project. The film opens with the film’s ‘climax’, if you will, the final scene, closely followed by the end credits. One would be forgiven by thinking that we’re in for another movie that will have the narrative played out in reverse – like the director’s hard-hitting 2002 movie Irreversible – but that is not the case here. The following scenes are comprised of the group of dancers, led by Sofia Boutella’s choreographer Selva, laughing and chatting over some wind-down drinks having just nailed a very well executed dance routine. Thinks slowly to deteriorate after one of the group spiked the sangria with LSD. What follows is 90 minutes of – well, an absolute assault on the senses as the drug takes hold over each of them, Noe letting his weaving uninterrupted camera navigate the anarchy that ensues.
[ctt template=”10″ link=”hwf4l” via=”yes” ]Cannes 2018: ‘Climax’ Review: Dir. Gaspar Noé (2018)[/ctt]
Shot over two weeks early in 2018, Noe stages the opening scenes with pin-point accuracy, his reverse-thinking initial construction initially confusing, if not a little unnecessary, but not surprising. We are willing to forgive him for almost anything after what we’ve seen him deliver in the past – be it 8-minute rape scenes, extremes of violence and ejaculating penises spurting towards the camera in glorious 3D.
Thankfully, there’s nothing too wrenching here – well, save a nasty kick in the guts about halfway through and countless acts of outrageous disorder amongst this drug-fuelled group, self destructing as their involuntary binge progresses. Climax messes with your senses as a whole, the relentless booming of the impressive soundtrack bashing your ears, and Noé’s twisting camera dancing around its cast constantly, almost turning the viewer’s stomach as it does so.
The Belgian allows his cast to freely express themselves, each one of them conducting their own unscripted pieces of performance art (there was no specific script, the choreographed dance at the beginning the only pre-planned sequence). Each performer is superb, Boutella especially who, in a stand-out, very memorable scene, gets her hands stuck in her tights as the LSD reaches its toxic peak. There’s also a scene when a German dancer stands and relieves herself in the middle of the dance floor, blank expression on her face, and one more that sticks in the mind, in one of the film’s lighter moments, when a young boy, son of one of the troupe is seen lurking in background slowly swinging his hips have just had a gulp of the ‘good stuff.’
Climax is as close to a zombie-fied horror as Gaspar Noé will ever make – a trippy, mind-bending kind of ‘whodunnit’, one that gives a truly unique, very memorable cinema experience. It is sure to shock, repulse, and be a major talking point – just like all of this filmmaker’s other films, really. If those were up you street, then this won’t disappoint. If they offended you, then don’t be surprised to feel the same about the new one. Either way, you can’t argue that he’s more than delivered with this offering – an acid-fuelled, relentless shocker that’ll stay lodged in your brain days after experiencing it. Quite a trip indeed.
Climax review by Paul Heath, May 2018.
Climax was reviewed at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
