Today I sat down to watch Climax, a film from Argentinian director Gaspar Noé who was also behind the films Enter the Void and I Stand Alone.
The film opens to a young woman covered in blood, running across the snow. I came to learn later on in the film that the woman was fleeing from a dance school where a party had gone terribly wrong.
At the party, someone has spiked the punch with a heavy dose of LSD and the dancers go from happy to a drug-filled orgy that causes utter chaos and murder.
The way the film was shot and presented is a Suspira-like vision in neon colors. Between the colors, chaos, and strange angles, the film will leave your head spinning. If Noé was aiming to make you feel like you are drugged, he accomplished it. When the credits rolled I felt like I had just stepped off of a tilt-a-whirl.
By god, the cast was amazing. Their paranoia and inebriated acting were out of this world. The Mummy actress Sofia Boutella was incredible and so believable. I can’t help but wonder if while preparing for her role she watched hours of videos of people high on Flakka. It’s very evident that she is a dancer. As it is that the entire cast all have a dancing background specializing in different styles.
Romain Guillermic, Souheila Yacoub, Kiddy Smile, Claude-Emmanuelle Gajan-Maull, Giselle Palmer, Taylor Kastle, Thea Carla Schott, Sharleen Temple, Lea Vlamos, and Alaia Alsafir star alongside Boutella.
While Climax is strange, intense and chaotic, it’s also strangely beautiful and elegant. It has many individual tales that culminates in one bright, grungy, French language piece.
Climax dances on to Blu-ray™ and DVD May 28, 2019, from Lionsgate.
