‘Climax’ Will Make You Never Want To Drink Sangria (Or Take Drugs) Ever Again
Gaspar Noé's latest horror follows a troupe of dancers who drink LSD-spiked sangria. But is it worth the pain?
Gaspar Noé has built his film career off provocation — Climax, his latest descent into depravity, is no exception.
Much like Lars Von Trier, Noé takes pride in his divisiveness. When Climax debuted at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, the town was plastered with posters of the French director’s devilish grin, along with a challenge — listing off his films of the past two decades: “You despised I Stand Alone, you hated Irréversible, you loathed Enter the Void, you cursed Love, now try Climax”.
Loosely based off a true story, Climax is set in the ’90s in a boarding school-turned-rehearsal space, as a French dance troupe have an end-of-rehearsal party before they head off to tour the US. One problem: someone spikes the Sangria punch with an obscene amount of LSD. As the night stretches on, the drug-induced psychosis keeps climbing to new heights — and way past where most filmmakers might stop.
Among the horrors, a girl erupts in flames; friends turn violent as they question who spiked them; and a little boy is locked in the fuse room, screaming about cockroaches crawling everywhere.
All the while, the DJ (French ballroom hero Kiddy Smile) keeps playing demonic-tinged ’90s house (the likes of Daft Punk, Aphex Twin and Dopplereffekt). Through the long night, troupe members take turns in directing their aggressions onto each other and the dance floor, voguing, krumping and contorting their bodies relentlessly.
For all the poster provocations, Climax has been called one of Noé’s best films. It’s a disturbing yet stunning ride, as the dancers’ movements are perversely thrilling, even when violence could snap out at any second. Perhaps that’s why only six or so Cannes viewers walked out of Climax; compared to Irréversible‘s nauseating sexual assault or I Stand Alone‘s absolute carnage, it seems almost balanced. Or, rather, at least worth sticking around to see where it ends.
Yet in an interview with The Guardian, Noé expressed dismay at the lack of walk-outs. It’s a dumb badge of honour, and suggests he doesn’t know that Climax‘s power is in its awful wonders — in both senses of the word.
The Carnality Of Man Is Pretty Gnarly, Dude
Filmed chronologically over 15 days and off the back of a three-page script, Climax bursts with a chaotic, frenzied energy.
With the agility afforded by a handheld camera, Noé tracks characters in long shots as they stumble between the chaos. Climax is akin to an on-rails haunted house ride, as we are constantly directed to a new horror.
Talking to Junkee, Noé said the film was largely improvised beyond major plot points, playing mostly off the cast’s energy. Besides Sofia Boutella, who plays lead choreographer Selva, all the actors are amateurs, hand-picked from YouTube and Parisian Vogue balls for their dancing talents.
And we see those talents almost immediately. One of the film’s first scenes is the only actively rehearsed part of the film: a five-minute, one-shot 21 dancer spectacle that shits on anything ever seen in Step Up. “Some people say it’s my best scene ever,” says Noé, “but I’m not really responsible for it. I enjoyed being behind the crane — but thank Nina.”
Gaspar Noé on set of ‘Climax’.
He’s referring to choreographer Nina McNeely, who had three days before filming to perfect it, working to each dancer’s abilities. The result is mesmerising, a melting pot of Voguing, krumping, and shoulder-popping, thanks to one contortionist flown in from the Congo.
The tensions between styles — and, more importantly, the identities and communities those styles are born from — bubble over into the conversations we encounter across the party in the film’s first half, before the LSD sets in.
And while the film’s maddening end-half is all-consuming, the beginning is much more interesting coming from Noé, giving the film’s descent something more than pure nihilism.
There’s an inherent aggression that sits acceptably on the surface here, performed through dance, or offhand, improvised comments about French pride (“This is for France! Let’s slay the Yanks!”), sex and mean-spirited gossip. The LSD merely unleashes the terror underneath the everyday, but it’s hard to not question, at this point of Noé’s career, which half is more effective.
Sofia Boutella in ‘Climax’.
A Very Bumpy Ride
Describing a drug-fuelled film as a ‘trip’ is cliché, but Climax pulls off a rare feat.
As a film, it’s propelled by the same illogical logic of a substance-inflected night — no matter who we follow or where we go, it’s inevitable we’ll end up back on the dance floor, time-and-time again home to Climax‘s worst moments.
And despite Noé’s tendency towards on-screen massacres, Climax accepts that the truely terrifying moments are the ones lingering off-screen. Whether its a scream from afar or the constant thud of house music, we’re constantly aware of everything that could be occurring. The camera often leaves characters mid-nightmare, distracted, like a drug-inflicted mind, by a shinier thing.
Unfortunately, one of Climax‘s most discomforting elements isn’t anything terrifying, but the strong racial element to the violence in the film. Time and time again, the black dancers continually commit some of the most heinous acts — it is worth mentioning because the divide, like the carnality of the film, is not subtle. It feels pointed.
In time, we’re taught that the krumpers’ (mostly black men) mere on-screen presence suggests impending violence, after they repeatedly escalate private feuds into all-in fights. And of all the despicable acts in the film, the most reprehensible is given to dancer Mounia Nassangar. Most moments have motivation, even if created through an LSD-logic: this act is pure evil, borderline unbelievable, even in the circumstances.
Climax is propelled by the same illogical logic of a substance-inflected night — no matter who we follow or where we go, it’s inevitable we’ll end up back on the dance floor.
Given France’s ongoing violence and discrimination against North African immigrants, the divide flirts too much with a dangerous idea of blackness-as-inherently-violent, seemingly without critique. When we asked Noé about this, he said “no comment was intended” by the casting.
“I had zero preference for [the cast’s] gender, sexual tendencies or their origins or ethnicities,” he said. “I made the whole cast by who would look great on screen. And then the story was like that before — whether people are Asian, Caucasian, Black or whatever, humans are humans, and humans always have multiple faces.”
It’s worth remembering the film was improvised: decisions were made in the moment, off a few pieces of paper. In the two weeks of filming, we’re sure cliques formed, and people from the same dance communities stick together, on and off-screen. But as we’ve said, the film is so well constructed, balancing demonic acts with dancerly cinematography. In contrast, the racial politics of Climax linger without purpose, something created without care.
At one point, one dancer says “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Climax won’t kill you. Unfortunately for Noé, you’ll probably find it worth the pain, and won’t even think about leaving the cinema. It will, however, make you second guess drinking any party punch.
Climax is in cinemas now.
Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and co-host of Sleepless In Sydney on FBi Radio. Follow him on Twitter.