Climax

An LSD-fulled nightmare of dances, violence, delusions, betrayal and desire by the one and only Gaspar Noé. The dance sequences are quite stunning to watch while the descent into chaos and madness makes the movie a bold, striking and nightmarish trip into hell that you cannot unsee.

It took me four years to get around to this and now that I have, one of the most nightmarish LSD trips to ever curse the screen. I mean, FUCKING HELL!

The best way to describe and recommend it is from Gaspar Noé himself when he said, "the first part of Climax is like a roller coaster, the second like a ghost train."

A disgusting, morally reprehensible work of insane genius

Climax, the latest film from Argentinian-French provocateur Gaspar Noé, is a disturbing, depraved, disgusting, and debauched piece of absolute insane genius that I thoroughly adored from beginning to end, and which I never, ever, want to see again.

Lord of the Flies (1954) by way of Heronimus Bosch or Zdzisław Beksiński, Climax is what you might get if you mashed-up Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975), Darren Aronofsky's mother! (2017), and Anne Fletcher's Step Up (2006); a dance movie that morphs into a horror film, which then attempts to show the audience a literal hell on Earth. If you've seen any of director Gaspar Noé's previous four films, you'll know that his reputation for excess and pushing both his characters and his audiences to the extreme is well earned, and with Climax, he takes that audience and those characters further than ever before. Granted, there's nothing here to rival Le Boucher's sickening attack on his pregnant wife from Seul contre tous, or the near-unwatchable rape or fire extinguisher scenes from Irréversible. However, whereas those films feature sudden moments of barbaric violence punctuating (relatively) quotidian narratives, in Climax, the oppressive feeling of dread is unrelenting, affording the audience not even a moment to drop their guard, as not only is there a possibility that something horrific might be around the corner, chances are something definitely is; once everything kicks off, there is simply no reprieve. So even though the acts of violence are not, in themselves, as extreme as some of those in Noé's back-catalogue, the cumulative effect is far worse. Obviously, this makes the film something of an endurance test, even at only 96 minutes, but this is precisely the point – Noé wants the audience to be utterly exhausted by the end, and he employs numerous confrontational and disorientating techniques to achieve such. Disney this most definitely is not.

For my complete review, please visit: https://boxd.it/wVCZD

You have to admire Noé for the way he just fucks with conventions as he pleases and stages lengthy camera rides just for the fun of it. The film sets up a huge cast of dancers pulling off some crazy vogue shit and lets them slowly but surely decend into a feverish hell. I was not without doubts while watching this( and he does let his bad boy hang out) but I ended up just enjoy the hypnotic ride. It's definitly nothing substantial but a big step up from "LOVE".

There are some AMAZING shots in it for sure. The over head dance sequences are nothing shout of stellar!

Visceral, chaotic, disturbing, nauseous, terrifying, colourful, outrageous, brilliant. Noe seems to shock and delight and equal measure. There are very long drawn out takes, amazingly choreographed dance scenes, hellish and horrifying images, a pulsating soundtrack but it all gets cooked into to a completely immersive piece of masterful cinema.

The narrative is not straightforward, and seems to focus on a comment on modern French society / diaspora but also shows a take on the paradise > purgatory > hell tale that mainly revolves around sex. In that respect it's definitely for the audience to make up there own mind what Noe wants to tell us. There are alot of things placed backwards in this film. Maybe Noe is trying to tell us we're not living our lives correctly.

It's a must see for any fan of Noe or art house. What an experience.

The film kicks off in a pretty cool way with interviews of the artists on a TV, surrounded by a small collection of VHS Tapes and books. This setting almost distracted me from what the people were actually saying, building an intriguing tension before the action even begins. Then, I was completely hypnotized by the brilliant opening scene, with stunning choreography and captivating camera work. It felt like I was drawn right into their world.

But then, I was abruptly pulled out by the most cringe and shallow conversations about sex positions and moisture levels. At that moment, I felt a twinge of unease—not the horror type of fear, but a worry that this might not be my kind of movie if it continued this way.

And then, bam—I was back in my element. The movie turned into twisted horror with a pulse nullifying anxiety of over 9000. Oh my god, what a fall into the void. Everything was immersive, staged in a way that every single detail was built up and then hit with unrestrained force. Everything just became too awkward, something which I almost never feel when watching films. Gaspar Noé created an unbearable, almost visceral hurt that just continued.

The fact that it’s all set in a single location and with multiple one-shots kept me glued, almost caged in the movie. And introducing it with the well-known phrase "based on true events"—well, that only made the perspiration worse.

[spoiler] t(I did more research on it after the movie. It seems that everything else was a "what if" scenario, save for the actual element of a dancing group allegedly having something slipped into their drinks. A truly terrible one.)[/spoiler]

In the end, Climax took me on a chaotic, visceral journey that was disturbing in the best possible way. It's a unique experience that left me rattled yet oddly satisfied. It’s rare for a film to feel this raw and beautiful at the same time.

literally electrifying, the most crazy movie I saw and liked

Definitivamente me quedo con la frase "Vivir es una imposibilidad colectiva". Si le ponen mala calificación es por pura venganza.