Directed by:
Gaspar NoéScreenplay:
Gaspar NoéCinematography:
Benoît DebieCast:
Sofia Boutella, Romain Guillermic, Souheila Yacoub, Kiddy Smile, Claude Gajan Maude, Giselle Palmer, Taylor Kastle, Thea Carla Schott, Sharleen Temple (more)Plots(1)
Following a successful rehearsal, a dance troupe set about celebrating with a party. But when it becomes apparent that someone has spiked the sangria, the joyous atmosphere soon transforms into a nightmarish hellscape of violence and twisted carnality as the dancers begin to turn on each other in an orgiastic frenzy. (Arrow Films)
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Reviews (12)
The best dance film since Dirty Dancing! The cinematography is just incredible. The camera revolves around the characters, makes long zoom-ins, somersaults and flips, crawls upside-down, peers down vertically… until you start feeling dizzy. Noé playfully makes fun of the viewer, for example with the end credits not being at the end at all, or by the means of editing – at some point, you get insanely long scenes in a single take, to then better contrast with a succession of short scenes and a generous amount of really eye-catching and aggressive cuts. In short, the structure of this film is totally polymorphic and completely deviates from the established conventions. And, certainly as Noé intended, Climax has the ability to enthral, entertain, disgust, disturb and frighten the viewer. [KVIFF 2018]
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Almost every other better film critic has outlined a quick, more or less modest parallel between Bosch's depiction of Hell from the triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights" and the second part of Noé's film, i.e., the "horror" part. It would be a mistake, as every other critic does, to separate the first part (before things go wrong) and the second part of the film, just as it is impossible to separate the parts of the triptych. Here, we can rely on the idea that was expressed in Jean Eustache's film about Bosch's Hell: "I really feel that it is in the third painting, in the description of Hell, where Bosch finally lets himself go. He lets himself be carried away by the description of pleasure, senseless and complete. This pleasure is so complete that even its consciousness is not present." If the relationship between painful pleasure and the attractiveness of terror is only a conscious contradiction, while at the level of the unconscious, it is the desired goal of the death urge, towards which we willingly walk with joyful tears of horror immediately after LSD disables our social inhibitors, it is a possibility that Noé does not precisely examine - he only shows it. That is his classic position for me: a mixture of shallowness and a desire for depth. Fortunately, we already know that contradictions are not mutually exclusive, but collide with each other, so it is not possible to give up on Noé's work for such reasons, just as Bosch also had a troubled relationship with perspective and, therefore, with the depth of the field; criticizing Noé for shallowness would be nothing more than bourgeois attachment to the conscious sphere of film.
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Many people I know love this film, so I apologise to them beforehand. I suffered. A totally empty camera exhibtion that if it wasn’t for the titles nobody would have a clue as to what it is supposed to be about. The staging must have been hard, there’s no doubt about that, but that’s pretty much all I can praise. If you played only the soundtrack to someone, they would sue you for personal injuries, and this is the very aggressive and shallow way Noe tries to achieve the depression and exhaustion of the audience, also in purely visual terms. And I don’t see anything praise-worthy about that, because other than fuck-all, the only thing I can take from this is that Boutella has wonderful shape and movements and that in the next party I will drink my beer from MY own glass. I’m afraid that this is my first and also last film by Noé.
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Watching Gaspar Noé's films is like discovering new forms of communication. The opening dance scene is hypnotic perfection and pure ecstasy, while everything else is mainly about how far you are willing to go and how far your spectator endurance reaches. A spectacular cameraman show and epileptic choreography accompanied by techno on a trip; or in other words, Noé knows how to mix a tailor-made sangria. He collected his most frequent trademarks, scattered them at a dance party and purposefully created a hallucinogenic apocalypse with zero plot, but maximum efficiency. A wild and predatory experimental ride, incredibly progressive and, at the same time, narcissistically immersed in itself. But what else would you expect from Noé?
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When I see Gaspar Noé's name, I’m instantly intrigued. I expect an abstract concept, absurd execution, all set to the vibe of 90s French techno and house. And Climax delivers exactly that. Cinematically, it’s a masterpiece. The opening dance scene is a brilliant example of how even in the midst of chaotic movement, there’s a sense of order. It’s a great introduction to the dancers, who then engage in slightly tedious, nonsensical chatter to introduce themselves—a nod to 80s horror that earned my respect. But then, the real madness begins. Words can’t do it justice; you just have to see it. It’s pure insanity on screen—shots that play with sound, visuals, backgrounds, and a camera that creates unbelievable sequences. And above all, the unfolding chaos is something you could never imagine.
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