Climax by Gaspar Noé

Rating: 8/10 (25 December 2019)

The stories about a group of people who are having fun in any kind of places, to celebrate a party or even to prepare for the next days rehearsal, are one of the most unexpected stories to tell. As these parties are surrounded by loud rhythmic songs, with more or less choreographed dancers, who express all of their emotions through the dance as body language. Until something unexpected would happen to the main characters, who would live in a nightmare which they cannot escape. Some of these stories would end with the main characters who survive from the nightmare, while other stories would end with the main characters who die from the nightmare. The auteur filmmaker Gaspar Noé seems intrigued to explore this theme, in the most unexpected way and unforgettable way. As the shooting of the movie took only 15 days, which is unusual to shoot a film with that brief time, in 2018 came out Climax by Gaspar Noé with Sofia Boutella, Kiddy Smile, Romain Guillermic, Souheila Yacoub, Claude Gajan Maull, Giselle Palmer, Taylor Kastle and Thea Carla Schott. The movie's plot: In the mid 1990s, a group of dancers join in a boarding school, for three day rehearsal with a DJ, their choreographer and her little son. All of them are having fun, until they would realize in the drink sangria is filled with LSD, which everyone is going to live in an irreversible nightmare. The movie would capture the audience attention from the beginning to the end, without letting them be distracted by anything. The camera and the lightings work to be compatible, in every single angle shots and in every camera movements, especially to see what would happen to the main characters. As most of the long takes help to capture the audience attention, to see how much the nightmare would go far. The editing was specifically elaborated to create scary atmospheres filled with suspense, without ruining the narration's rhythm, needed to see what the main characters would go through. Each of the actors, especially the ones who play the dancers, did an excellent performance as some of them have initially a bond with each other. Until the nightmare would cause them to not have anymore trust with anybody, as they would be unprepared with what is going to happen with all of them. Each of the actors who play the dancers have done an extraordinary choreography, as the main characters would communicate their feelings only through dancing. Especially in the dance sequences surrounded by the rhythmic songs, which can be felt their rhythm in their movements. Climax is one of the most thrilling and unexpected movies of all time, as well as one of the best Gaspar Noé's movies.