Climax

Director- Gaspar Noe

Cast- Sofia Boutella, Romain Guillermic

Country of Origin- France/ Belgium

Distributor - Sony

Number of discs –  1

Reviewed by - Tyler Miller

Date- 05/30/2019

Since I first saw the trailer for Gaspar Noe’s CLIMAX (2018), I knew we were heading to something special. It’s the rare film that captures the spirit of dance and sexual heat. Something universal and yet personal. For my own expression as a person it fit with a lot of my fears, and my energy for life. It also features some of my favorite disco and dance songs. So the movie lives and breathes based on the viewer.

The film follows a group of French dancers who are rehearsing for a new tour that will lead to the United States. On the final night of their practice, housed in a abandoned school, they celebrate with one last party. The weather is rough and snowy and soon the party is corrupted when the group discovers the sangria has been spiked with LSD. As the drugs kick in the dancers soon find themselves losing control of the situation. What follows is a nightmare of human cruelty.

Gaspar Noe is known as a trouble maker for his extreme films like IRREVERSIBLE (2002) and the highly sexual LOVE (2015). CLIMAX is also an exercise in bizarre and extreme style. But unlike those previous two examples, Noe finds balance in the rhythm in this experimental trip. The story is based on a actual event that happened around 1996, but the film is more of a freeflow painting of ideas. It’s said that the shooting script was only five pages long, with the rest of the dialogue improvised by the cast.

What’s shocking about the movie is how trance like it is. It’s purely observational with the characters just running wild. But they all feel fleshed out with thought out pasts and life experiences. To help this dreamlike feeling, the camerawork and steadicam shots are simply stunning. Some takes seem to last 15 minutes at a time. One shot even references POSSESSION (1981).

Like Noe’s other films, CLIMAX doesn’t play by the rules and has the most Godardian of editing choices. The most eye catching being the misplaced credits. As the last act turns into a horror film, it succeeds in being one of the most unnerving movies of 2018/19. The sounds of a crying child and some nasty business seen in the corner of the screen paint a tragic picture of some of the cruelty in the film.

CLIMAX is a refreshing piece of cinema and one of the best of the year.

Sadly the US release of the film is a mess. Unlike Arrow’s extra packed UK Blu-ray release, Lionsgate has put the film out on DVD only with one extra feature. The picture quality also suffers and looks like a cinema print you seen on some Hong Kong bootlegs. The 2.0 French Stereo mix is above average but lacks depth. Some sound effects are muffled, There is no hiss or buzz. The English subtitles are smaller than usual but still readable. The only extra is a misleading interview with actress Sofia Boutella that is labeled as a making of featurette.

This is the kind of film that needs to have a blu-ray release. If your region free, I highly recommended buying the Arrow release.