As in your face as always with the director, deep down into the artistic abyss

Rating: 6/10 (13 December 2018)

"Climax" is an award-winning 2018 film and the newest work by writer and director Gaspar Noé from Argentina, but yeah his works are almost always in the French language and so is this one here. French film buffs will probably recognize more cast members than I did during these almost 100 minutes. The only name familiar to me is Sofia Boutella and she plays also the character that is closest to be a main protagonist and probably has more screen time than everybody else in here. But it is an ensemble piece for sure. This is about a group of young dancers practicing in a snowed-in house in no man's land somewhere, but quickly ending the practice and moving on to party hard afterward after a bit of talk. And this is where the film gains steam really and becomes as excessive as you would expect it from a Noé movie. It is very graphic again, this time more in terms of violence than in terms of sexuality. For example we have a relatively young child take a drink from sangria that is laced with acid and we hear him suffer afterward, perhaps die even. It is not 100% clear as we only hear him behind a thick wall. And a young pregnant woman is kicked and punched several times in the stomach, which was most painful for me to watch. Still, there are some boobs visible, but yeah that is all really apart from some making out. We also see said woman cutting herself deep with a knife in her arms and also her face, which I found surprising as I could have expected this reaction had she taken from the LSD drink too, but she didn't, so yeah did not make that much sense to me. Then again, what is supposed to make sense in a Noé movie!?
It is all about the style and the immediate reactions you are experiencing to what you see on screen. Which can be extreme. And if you have seen some stuff from Noé like "Irréversible" of course, then you will know that he is not a great fan of chronology and this is also true here, especially very early on, even if it is more chronological than most other stuff from him. Tough to watch at times for sure with the scenes I mentioned earlier, but if you manage to stomach them and sit through them, then you will be rewarded with a pretty good film. It's not my favorite film by Noé, but I enjoyed it. The longer the film goes, the less important it also becomes who laced the LSD in fact, so it is never really a crime movie, even if there are indicators it could have been Boutella's character at the very end. I liked the reference back to the beginning when we see somebody drugging herself through her eyes, something another character has described very early in the movie and yeah watching it is far more intense than just hearing it. Besides, pay attention to the films shown very early on when we hear those interviews with all the characters. Anyway, another aspect I finally want to mention is how this film can be seen as a parallel to sex, with how it all starts and moves slowly towards the ecstatic (drug-induced) climax before at the very end, there is the silence, the calming down, the resting, even the (little) death for one, no two characters I believe. I don't think this is a coincidence, but it is something you may want to experience yourself and think about it. While I did enjoy the film for the most part, it is not one I would want to watch soon again in the near future. But I do give it a thumbs-up and recommend checking it out. To grown-ups only though. Noé delivered again, even if I did not like it as much as the raters here on imdb did and also not as much as critics loved it, even if it certainly oozes creativity frequently. Go see it, preferably on the big screen.