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Climax
****
Dir: Gaspar Noé
Starring: Sofia Boutella, Romain Guillermic, Souhelia Yacoub
(France, 18, 1hr 35mins)
No stranger to controversy is writer/director Gaspar Noé. He has previously brought us Irreversible with its graphic rape scene and horrific violence. We’ve also had the porn of Love with it’s 3D semen spurts and. Now he offers up a horror/drama musical as a group of 20 dancers head to an abandoned warehouse and dance for three days.
Allegedly based on a 90s dance troupe that took LSD after a rehearsal. This becomes a descent into hideous hedonism, a psychedelic blend of dance movie and the Marquis De Sade. Noé’s film is transcendent, constantly interesting, often uncomfortable and exhausting.
Narratively disjointed and full of structural anomalies Climax starts with the final credits and then introduces the dancers in a direct address to camera during an audition. There’s an epic one-shot rehearsal, full of bravura camera moves, brilliantly and erotically choreographed with Sofia Boutella taking a break from ass-kicking to display her dance skills as the sort-of lead amidst this group of superfit performers.
Troupe organizer Emanuelle (played by Claude Gaujan Maull) is pleased with their work, but has also rather unwisely brought her son Tito along. Rehearsal over, the dancers break off for chats as we begin to find out their sexual peccadillos. Noé then throws in a visual hand grenade and the film becomes out-and-out horror as the spiked punch they’ve all been drinking takes effect.
Violence rears its head very uncomfortably. There’s a very disturbing female fight and Tito terrifyingly tastes the spiked punch. Its intense stuff, played with gymnastic conviction by the cast, forcefully captured and nightmarishly filmed by Noé, who has ostensibly created a true cinematic bad trip, full of raw power.
What Climax is meant to be saying is open to debate but it is certainly a film that is meant to be experienced; the pounding dance music changing from exuberant to satanic, the camerawork dreamlike, Nina McNeely’s choreography animalistically alarming. A film that will leave you feeling bludgeoned, Climax is nevertheless an incredible achievement. Whether you’d be able watch it more than once is open to question.
words Keiron Self
Opens September 21