Climax * (2018, Sofia Boutella, Romain Guillermic, Souheila Yacoub, Kiddy Smile) – Movie Review

Brio film-making but way too strong and scary for me.

Writer-director Gaspar Noé’s dynamic but hellish 2018 musical horror drama Climax is controversial brio film-making, perhaps admirable in its way, but way too strong and scary for me, with shockingly disturbing content, in-your-face aggressive dance scenes and alienating electric rhythm music. Anger and rage are in the air instead of warmth and pleasure you hope to come from music and dance. It starts with an alienating series of interviews with the performers during the casting, and carries on being alienating. Noé means to provoke, and he does, causing a powerful reaction.

Then, on with the dance. In the mid Nineties, 20 urban French dancers gather in a remote, empty school building in a forest on a wintry night for a three-day rehearsal. The final all-night party around a large sangria bowl turns into a communal hallucinatory madness after their sangria is laced with LSD.

It is gruelling, very strong stuff, with disturbing content involving a combination of drug use, violent behaviour and strong sexuality, as well as strong language and some graphic nudity.

Only the first dance scene in the film as choreographed with the others allowing the dancers freely to express themselves, giving it all a spontaneous but amateurish air. I will say this for it though, it has the brave courage of its own convictions and is unique. There is no film like it, and I’m not honestly expecting a sequel. It puts you through the mincer, and you come out minced. Something’s kicking in, yeah, something’s kicking me in the head.

Noé’s known for Irreversible (2002) and Love (2015).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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