Climax is a French/Belgian film written and directed by Gaspar Noé. The movie was produced by A24, producers of such films like Eighth Grade, Mid90s and Hereditary. Climax was first shown at Cannes Film Festival on May 10, 2018, then released to theaters in France on Sept. 19, 2018 and in Belgium on Nov. 21, 2018, and released March 1 in the United States.
I can say with 100 percent certainty that this movie is the most unique movie experience this year.
The movie is about a French dance troupe that throws a party in an abandoned school. At a certain point in the night, one of the dancers realizes that their drinks were spiked with LSD and hijinx ensue.
Climax is a “love-it or hate-it” kind of movie. A lot of critics will say the lack of story, odd-pacing, unlikable characters, and weird editing choices ruin any kind of engagement the audience could have with the movie. Other critics say the movie’s cinematography, coordination and performances make it an interesting statement on party culture and a beautiful exercise in extremism in film.
I’m in the latter camp of critics.
This movie left me in a bad headspace after seeing it for the first time. The number of emotions and themes packed into it is nuts. I left the theater speechless and without an opinion on the movie initally, which is a rare occurrence. The first thing I could think to do is to look up things about the production. Climax took 15 days to shoot, which is a small time to shoot a full-length movie.
The cinematography is spectacular in Climax. The movie consists of two really long shots of events going on in the story, and medium shots of all of the characters talking in pairs of two. The cinematography portrays the way characters feels through pacing and camera movements that allows the audience to get into the character’s headspace.
The editing in the movie also is pretty rad. During the first portion of the movie, the pacing of the editing is slow and monotonous, with weird black frames left between each of the cuts. The slow editing allows the audience to settle into the setting and get introduced to the characters in a natural and interesting way as they talk about the party and their various sexual conquests. The extra black frames help to give the audience a sense of dread for whatever is going to happen to the dancers.
The performances in the movie feel natural. Most of the characters are based on the actors playing them. The actors are allowed to just stand in front of the camera and talk in character to the other actors, allowing character dynamics, motivations and conversation topics to come up naturally and not feel as though they are reading lines off of the script.
Sofia Boutella, “Selva,” stuck out due to the movie following her most of the time and her being one of the only trained actors in the cast. Souheila Yacoub, “Lou,” also performed her role well, especially with the depressing themes her character had to deal with directly. While the rest of the dancers weren’t horrible in their roles, they were obviously dancers before they were actors. There were some moments where the dancers felt like they were breaking character and were confused about what they were supposed to do, especially in the beginning, but it really doesn’t take that much away from the movie.
Climax is the most extreme and technically marvelous movie you will see all year. Climax is worth at least a second viewing due to the amount of coordination and attention to detail that Noé puts into the film. Climax is the climax of the year.
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