Climax

Started by wilder, May 23, 2018, 04:26:38 AM

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wilder



In the mid 90's, 20 urban dancers join together for a three-day rehearsal in a closed-down boarding school located at the heart of a forest to share one last dance. They then make one last party around a large sangria bowl. Quickly, the atmosphere becomes charged and a strange madness will seize them the whole night. If it seems obvious to them that they have been drugged, they neither know by who nor why. And it's soon impossible for them to resist to their neurosises and psychoses, numbed by the hypnotic and the increasing electric rhythm of the music. While some feel in paradise, most of them plunge into hell.

Written and Directed by Gaspar Noé
Release Date - March 1, 2019

jenkins


polkablues

Step Up Into The Void. I'm here for this.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Robyn

oh, how didn't I know about this?

I love dancing, and I love Noe. this looks amazing.

Robyn

I found this quote:

"Near the beginning of the film, the dancers introduce themselves on a TV screen. Most importantly, there's a stack of VHS movies amongst which can be found : Suspiria, Possession, La maman et la putain [The Mother and the Whore] or Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma [Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom] (and Vibroboy ?? which I still need to see...). These films are all referenced at one point or another in the movie. That will give you the tone of the movie."

sounds like a very good mix.

jenkins

it's a psychological horror dance movie. i'm repeating that for myself, since going into it knowing that will help me. i wonder if i'll prefer this or Suspiria remake, i'm not sure

Drenk

Oh. I saw it! It was kind of weird—I really was into the first part, then it became what it was bound to happen and although it's being made by talented filmakers it completely lost me. Noé's love for chaos sometimes feel like a gimmick.
Ascension.

Just Withnail

The first part was really good, I agree. A lot of really suprising choices, whereas the second part strangely became a little one-note, when it's usually in the chaos-parts where Noé really shines. The film felt much less like a gradual descent, as I'd expected, and more like a hard contrasting between the two parts, between extreme bodily movement in the ecstatic dance sequences of the first half, and then in the extreme bodily mutilation of the last half. Some political elements both manage to feel like they're just thrown in there, and unexplored, but still be strangely resonant.

Robyn

Loved it. My favorite of the year.

Don't know what to say about it except that it's pretty much everything you'd expect from a Noe film at this point. Just pure insanity from beginning to end with a lot of music, dance, violence and sex that's there to either entertain you or make you feel sick. It might sound weird, but I actually think it's incredible fun to watch. There's not much more to it. You just have to watch it yourself and enjoy the ride.

Also, I suggested to my friend when I saw the trailer that we should do ecstasy and watch it on the big screen. In hindsight I'm glad we didn't. This film makes you high without any help from drugs.

Alexandro

Fantastically shot and performed by a great cast, but stupid beyond belief. I couldn't take it seriously after a certain point, all it's attempts at shock and dismay felt pretty adolescent and simplistic. I posted on facebook that the DEA should ask Noe to make their "just say no to drugs" commercials: that's what this ultimately comes to, a kind of updated reefer madness.


WorldForgot

#10
"'She Said, She Said'? That's mine. It's an interesting track. The guitars are great on it. That was written after an acid trip in L.A. during a break in the Beatles tour [...]. Peter Fonda came in when we were on acid and he kept coming up to me and sitting next to me and whispering, 'I know what it's like to be dead.' He was describing an acid trip he'd been on. We didn't 'want' to hear about that. We were on an acid trip and the sun was shining and the girls were dancing, and the whole thing was beautiful and Sixties, and this guy – who I really didn't know – he hadn't made Easy Rider or anything... kept coming over, wearing shades, saying, 'I know what it's like to be dead,' and we kept leaving him because he was so boring! And I used it for the song, but I changed it to 'she' instead of 'he.'..." - John Lennon

"The film you are about to see was born under the sound of the stars."



As focused a film as Noe has made yet! Irreversible translated the mortal-coil through the second law of thermodynamics --> as ephemeral as our livez may be, we expire in one direction. Enter The Void took this undeniable premise and explored all the rest, the psychedelic dream of having lived.


Don't read if you wanna go in knowing less!

"You start dancing young, you're hot to trot. And then... you get screwed in some corner then you get pregnant. So what do you do? You have to make your big mistakes a success."
- Emmanuelle to Daddy

Our characters' relationship to bodies and space iz beyond lucid, it's already collaborative and interactive, much before the trip takes them into the realmz of Żuławski, Anger, and Argento. This widening gyre within the same thematic space as Enter the Void, nirvana, consent, mommy/daddy headtripz
Spoiler: ShowHide
-- even punctuated with title cards "BIRTH IS A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY" / "DEATH IS AN EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCE" --
yet what captivates me most here is its notion of creative space gone wrong. Music and dance are a universal language, as consciousness iz. We get a roll call of characters to establish them, but as well they're all so different. Most dont partake in substance abuse, or at least they purportedly don't. It does not matter. Outside of their control the Sangria has been spiked. Of course, in a culture of hysteria, the sober onez are first suspect.

But Noe isn't tone deaf, and the costuming + blocking + composition will clue you in to much. I've read that the dialogue can come off vapid, but it's a naturalist mode, cheeky, too. So then, when the volume increases, you're ground into the space of the dance group just as much as the geography of the dancefloor.

God's Eye Dancing iz as objectively as we can peep the group bouncing off each other. After this we'll mostly be tagging along to their trip...



"I know what it's like to be dead"

Noe's fixation on consent persists... But it's aimed at all sorts of our wantz. Reefer Madness isn't far off, some may even say mother! but maybe closest to this film for me is The Thing. Where you take notions of me takes notions of you... And this countryside dance school is enveloped in a blizzard.

Your desire ends up framing a sense of identity -- and others' perspectives zap around the many youz inside -- within a swirl of these Noe and the entire cast (gosh! they're really good...) present notions of violence as an inherent vice to expression and untangled intentions. You read into what's said only as far as you know it can go... But it can always go deeper. Our internal spirals are infinite within our finite time. And inside us all a child.

This creativesphere consideration, along with Guadagnino's Suspiria have me thinking a lot about our state of ideological extremism that itself would want you to believe it is more sterile than it is toxic, more politically correct than it is repressed. Noe has decided to be provocative inside a space that funnels into the mainstream, dance and the relation of drug culture to the music/rave scene. When these characters yell about the yanks it's the same to me as the opening title card "A FRENCH FILM AND PROUD OF IT."
Isn't the idea to be triggered? Into states of experience that will help us reflect? Won't the creativesphere always ask to consider the depths of our spiral? Questionz... Provocative arthouse iz not a cinematic mode that appeals to "everyone" but within this dance-horror framework, it iz Noe at refined stylistic height. Drawing us closer to environments of everyone.

"Cuz you're making me feel like I never was born"

Something Spanish

God bless you if you enjoyed this film, for me the experience was an insufferable bore. The stage directions were a bit impressive, as was the opening dance number, otherwise the thing felt like an endurance test, one I nearly failed despite the short running time. Noe is a talented director, even if he insists on using those talents with the sheer intention of fucking with the audience. Once the acid kicks in, Climax becomes nothing but a one-note show where everyone freaks out. There is nothing dynamic or even remotely interesting on the screen, just a rapid descent into bad trip freak-outs then we stay there, tortured with boredom for about an hour. Holy shit, what a fucking slog fest. Like I said, if you dig this thing, all the power to you, me, I need a little more than an hour long negative reaction to hallucinogens.

WorldForgot

Dig how the dance group ricochets off each other, their sensations at max -- and Benoit Debie has been my fav cinematographer for years. It's the fizzy pop of Noe films, perhaps, but I vibe with it plenty.
And, well, working in a movie theater you get tired of watching these countless dog movies... :p

The Ultimate Badass

I enjoyed this very much. Noe's movies are always compelling to me, if nothing else, but watching Sofia Boutella in this was especially exhilarating. Her performance is like an extended, amped up, version of Isabelle Anjani's subway freakout from Possession, infused with the highly controlled physicality of a dancer, set to EDM. It's really a beautiful thing to watch unfurl onscreen.