Climax

The only good thing about this movie was the dancing. Literally, everything else about it is annoying. It's actually really boring. It has no plot and no point. The dialogue is puerile, at best, and you can't possibly empathize with the characters. If this is your first introduction to Noe, you'll likely never feel the need to watch any of his other films.

Had many expectations before watching this "art" movie... However, I was left dumbstruck with the "salad" of shocker put all together in such a mainstream movie going for an arthouse movie. Tackles and puts in your face too many taboos and (still?) controversial issues such as homosexuality, abortion, rape, incest, drugs and so on. Lacks an intriguing story in my opinion. Visual mambo-jumbo and musical hysteria! Watch it if you don't have anything else better to do... Such a pity the soundtrack is so cool and rich in 70s and 80s electro and disco hits and wasted on such a flick!

Love it or hate it, this film is technically astonishing and whatever it's trying to do, it's doing it very well. It's almost like they've trapped the true essence of French Extremism, set it on fire, and followed it with a steady cam.

The camera work in this is surreal and its movements, along with the actors' choreography, are surprisingly well coordinated for a "write-as-we-go" film.

Climax will make you feel a lot of things and I don't think you're going to like how most of those things feel, but that's exactly what makes Climax a very well executed horrifying experience.

As an exercise in pure viscera, Argentine provocateur Gaspar Noé mostly pleases with Climax. A group of dancers unknowingly drink spiked sangria which slowly warps their afterparty into an LSD-soaked nightmare. With a premise like that, it may be evident that this is a film meant to be experienced rather than thought about. The pleasures of Climax come nearly entirely from its sheer audiovisual power: the ceaselessly pulsating score, the fluid one-shot takes, the lurid colors. It's closer to performance art than what most people would characterize as a "movie" and should be approached with that mindset if you're to enjoy it. However, as enjoyable as its best sequences are, the lack of nearly any thematic depth imbues much of the film with a subtly nagging tediousness. And even when viewed purely from an experiential perspective, it is far from watertight in its pacing and flow. Still, there is a cumulative power in its sound, visuals, and theatrics that's hard to deny.

Weak 3.5/5

CLIMAX or how long can you stand watching boring dancers and average at best actors pretend to be on drugs? Zero story, lots of screaming, no surprises. I'd even say this film is pretty tame (for Noé). And it's neither radical nor inventive anymore to simply turn the camera upside down or to show the end credits first. Apart from big respect for some well done one-shot moments, I'm quite disappointed.