Review of Climax (2018) by Bertaut1 — 02 Mar 2019

A disgusting, morally reprehensible piece of insane genius.

Climax, the latest film from Argentinian-French provocateur Gaspar Noé, is a disturbing, depraved, disgusting, and debauched piece of absolute insane genius that I thoroughly adored from beginning to end, and which I never, ever, want to see again. Set in the winter of 1996, and allegedly based on a real incident in France that year, the film focuses on a dance troupe putting the finishing touches to a performance before embarking on a national tour. Upon finishing rehearsals, the troupe starts to party. As the night wears on, it becomes apparent that one of their number has spiked the sangria with powerful LSD, with each member descending into their own personal Hades of paranoia, violence, and/or wild sexuality.

In lieu of any kind of title card or opening credits, Climax begins with an abstract and non-descript shot of pure white. It is only as a girl staggers into shot from the top of the frame that it becomes apparent we are looking directly downwards onto a snowfield. After a moment, the girl collapses, and the camera revolves upwards along the vertical-axis through 360 degrees. Revealing the bare branches of a few nearby threadbare trees, the shot immediately establishes that we are in an isolated location in the dead of winter. Theoretically, this could be the clichéd opening scene to any generic slasher movie. However, the economy with which the shot conveys so much information serves to betray the fact that this is the meticulously composed opening salvo of an auteur who knows precisely what he's doing.

A moment later, the entire closing credits roll (upwards, obviously), right to the copyright information, and because there are no closing credits at the end of the film, the audience is allowed no transition back to reality. As the film ended, the lights immediately popped on, with no music to play us out, no darkened theatre to recompose ourselves. Indeed, to enhance the sense of discombobulation for which Noé is obviously striving, the last 15 minutes or so of the film are literally upside-down, with the absence of closing credits and the inverted image creating a sense of confusion and discomfort, just as the film is depicting the surviving dancers coming out of their drug-induced mania and back to the real world.

After the opening scene, the film shows the dancers' audition interviews, followed by the dance number. The second section is the dancers engaged in conversation with one another after rehearsals. The third section sees them realise the sangria is spiked, attempt to find out who did it, and the chaos that ensues when the drugs take hold. These three sections (dance, conversations, and drugs) roughly correspond to the three books of the Divina Commedia - Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno. However, in the poem, the order is Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The film moves in the opposite direction, as the Paradiso of the dance sequence gives way to the calm Purgatorio, before the descent into the Inferno.

We then witness a girl's head being set on fire, a pregnant girl being kicked repeatedly in the stomach, a girl slashing her own arm and face, a contortionist contorting to the point where he literally splinters his own bones, a child locked in a room full of cockroaches, a man scratching his chest to the point that it starts bleeding, public urination, lesbian rape, incest, and suicide. It's all very Disney!

But is there any kind of theme underpinning the whole thing, or is it shocking for the sake of being shocking? It would certainly be easy to dismiss Climax as thematically empty, but there is a political point buried beneath the carnage; the dance sequence takes place in front of a massive French flag, whilst the credits declare, "A French Film. And proud of it." Perhaps related to this, the troupe is made up of a cross-section of Europeans, and in the explosion of excess hedonism and hysterical mayhem, does this cross-section of ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations come to represent European multiculturalism tearing itself apart? In relation to this, Omar (Adrien Sissoko), the person who is initially blamed for spiking the sangria, is Muslim. Is Noé saying that in such a multicultural milieu, it's very easy to blame everything on the Islamic "Other"?

The fact is, I don't have a clue what Climax is about. Nor do I care. I take it for what it appears on the surface; an incredibly technically proficient depiction of a contemporary Inferno, as aesthetically impressive as it is morally disturbing, a film of unparalleled barbarism, that also stands as one of the most extraordinary cinematic achievements in recent years. It's a work of genius. Twisted, sick, depraved genius, but genius nonetheless. It disturbed me like no film in at least a decade, and I couldn't get it out of my head for days afterwards. I absolutely loved every single crazy minute of it. And I never wish to see it again.