Climax (2018)

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Director: Gaspar Noé

Screenplay: Gaspar Noé

Cast: Sofia Boutella as Selva, Romain Guillermic as David, Souheila Yacoub as Lou, Kiddy Smile as Daddy, Claude Gajan Maull as Emmanuelle, Giselle Palmer as Gazelle, Taylor Kastle as Taylor, Thea Carla Schott as Psyche, Sharleen Temple as Ivana, Lea Vlamos as Lea, Alaia Alsafir as Alaya, Kendall Mugler as Rocket, Lakdhar Dridi as Riley, Adrien Sissoko as Omar, Mamadou Bathily as Bats, Alou Sidibe as Alou, Ashley Biscette as Ashley, Vince Galliot Cumant as Tito, Sarah Belala as Jennifer

Synopsis: Set in the nineties, a troupe of dancers is isolated in a building away from civilisation, rehearsing for an American tour. Unfortunately, on the night of the final celebration party, someone has spiked the punch bowl with LSD...

[Spoilers Throughout]

Climax is a difficult film to judge. I am glad, for the first time I have seen a Gasper Noé film in the cinema, to have seen Climax on the big screen. My emotions may seem contradictory or even erratic however. The truth is that Climax itself is a fascinating film, one certainly memorable and rewarding if bad descents into hallucinatory hell are your desired prize, but leavened in artistic and moral flaws which directors like Gasper Noé need to be slapped out of doing lest they become boring, artistically problematic and a waste of time. The truth is Climax is a film I admire, but I'm sick of this nihilistic extremist cinema as it's now a few decades when Noé and his type started in the nineties, now to the point it's becoming gauche and artistically drying out. It's not surprising, among his contemporaries of the French Extremist movement, Bruno Dumont went into comedies, and the moment Noé's incredible technical style fails to win you over, he'll hit a backlash from fans whether the films are good or not for justifiable reasons.

Of course there's also the issue that with so many films as bleak as Climax existing, one has to ask if there's a detrimental effect on viewers which needs to be started to steered away from, a destructive influence subconsciously which Noé shouldn't be blamed for, but finds himself unfortunately within when so many films take on this sense of nihilism of the human species as Climax does, imagining that when acid ends up in the punch bowl, a group of dancers end up descending into madness, already established as petty and sex obsession in many cases before they've had the Mickey Finn. The stranger thing is that, despite being very basic to a potential fault, merely about this scenario with just some semblance of character building in-between, Climax has had very positive reviews even from critics who'd probably hate him, which makes this concern more significant to bring up now. I cannot for the life of me, in honesty, see how the film's gotten so many 5 star reviews on Letterboxd, let alone from professional critics, but I admit as much as my concern with Noé spinning his wheels tiredly is tempered with admiration with what Climax does get right.

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Structurally, I've always admired Noé, who has completely disregarded the conventions of how even opening and ending credits are presented, here as well the opening credits the ending ones, as well as that you only get the proper opening credits, visual symbols for staff like Enter the Void (2009), after a long time with the characters already in this hellish chamber piece and the LSD in the punchbowl finally kicks in. And for a beginning, Climax starts very well, beginning with video interviews for each character, surrounded by books on the left and videotapes on the right of the television screen where they're played I was rubber necking to get all of, of every character and a little about them. The initial set-up, bookended by legitimately well performed and shot dance sequences which suggests a new calling for Noé, are the best moments of the film, catty dialogue between dancers which Noé intercuts between different people and topics of conversation with a clear sense of geography, even able to walk a tight rope with some of the dialogue being incredibly un-PC and potentially offensive as well as much of it being funny too. Noticeably, alongside being a great group of dancers alongside actress Sofia Boutella, the cast's diverseness is of note when many films do not have this varied a group in characters let alone casting - Muslim, Caucasian and black, German emigrate, gay and heterosexual dancers, possibly bisexual members of the trope, male and female, alongside a brother and sister, and a mother who is a former dancer with her young son. It's a varied group, all idiosyncratic to an advantage, and knowing the film was not a long production and used a lot of improvisation has actually led to some of the most interesting dialogue moments from Gasper Noé. Frankly, his dialogue and characterisation has always been his greatest enemy, so this advantage here is one he should probably stick to from now on.

The film's divisive nature for me is when the LSD kicks in, when Noé's worst tendencies (as with all "extreme" directors) to tack on violence and showing human beings as awful creatures. It's trite, and between a pregnant member of the dance troupe being battered about to the signposted Chekov's electrical panel with a small child, Noé's nastiness is his worse vice. Neither were the cryptic intertitles with their amateur philosophy going to win any favours, as Noé is not Jean Luc-Godard, his flirtatious with this from Irreversible (2002) on always mockable as if he started wearing a beret in publicity shoots. And with this you also get the major catch with him as well that, described as the William Castle of extremist cinema, his ballyhoo alongside his nihilism causes me to roll my eyes as much as find moments to admire him. He's survived as much by his hyper visual style, as with many extremist directors, but if he slipped he'll be utterly pretentious and offensive. Hence why I always preferred Enter the Void, his one great film which for its flaws is admirable for being a truly unique and idiosyncratic one-off anyone should experience.

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Climax has passages which could've been the same - if Noé wasn't obsessed with the degradation, the visual experience of a terrible LSD trip as executed with the help with cinematographer Benoît Debie would've be exceptional. The quiet, languid nightmare we have for passages, shot in what feels like one takes with hidden cuts, usually following actress Boutella as she is trying to keep her sanity but lapsing into freak outs, would've been enough by itself without trying to replicate Possession (1981) and one of its infamous scenes or the crasser tangents. In fact, because of this, Climax misses out a huge idea except for moments in how, as dancers, the group becomes accidentally involved in a giant ritual. As the narcotics cause them to move in choreographed ways, their worse thoughts coming out or sexual passion to appear or for them to become stuck in ritualised moments stood on the spot in a random corridor, the film is at its best alongside the atmospheric harsh coloured lighting and the soundtrack, skipping between time appropriate songs by the likes of Daft Punk and Aphex Twin which suit each moment.

Instead Climax becomes over-the-top and even Debie, one of the my favourite cinematographers, contributes to one of the worse creative decisions of the film by having the entire ending depicting in an upside-down camera shot. On a giant cinema screen, it's a terrible creative design where you cannot absorb the visual information as necessary and it's also obnoxious. Bad decisions like this plague Noé's career a lot, and alongside how tiring his 'fuck-the-world' nihilism is, especially now he's in his fifties, I find myself stuck between Climax's virtues but also his terrible creative decisions and poor viewpoints of humanity by way of exploitative content. It's an issue to raise with those who helped him - Vice Magazine contributing to a producer's credit, Arrow Film distributing the film in the Uk - as there could be a point where people have had enough of Gasper Noé's style, not sustaining enough good moments, and start jerrying them as a result. More so as more rewarding and braver directors I've found - [as of 2018 the likes of Philippine's Khavn to France's Bertrand Mandico] - don't get this level of distribution and hype when they probably deserve instead of Noé.

Abstract Spectrum: Hallucinatory/Nightmarish/Psychotronic

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Personal Opinion:

Gasper Noé is someone I will have to talk about in terms of abstract cinema, especially as the best moments of Climax are appropriately freakish and potent. The worst moments of Climax however show I will only write of Gasper Noé in a begrudging manner, a man whose portrait appears when you look for "frustrating" in the dictionary.  

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