While it may not be as visually shocking as Irreversible (thankfully!) Climax leaves you with a deep sense of unease as the dark side of each dance is illuminated, and the music beats through an endless, febrile nightmare.
Gasper Noé has brought us some of the most disturbing yet fascinating movies of the past 20 years. Anyone who has seen Irreversible will know that Noé carves an eternal place in your memory, burrowing deep, daring you to revisit his films.
Climax is a drug-fuelled nightmare of dance eroticism and death, as a dance troupe celebrates artistic success, unaware that the drinks have been spiked with LSD. As the night progresses, their conversations, Noé twists their dance and desire into a deadly, claustrophobic descent into madness that rattles our nerves, as viewers or voyeurs of the unfolding darkness. Supposedly based on a true story of a 90s dance troupe who drank alcohol spiked with LSD after a performance in the ’90s, Noé may take this true story as his canvas, but his painting is far darker than the event he explores.
As a DJ spins endless thumping tracks, Climax expertly ratchets up the tension, the audience becoming a part of the descent into madness alongside the drugged-up dancers.
While it may not be as visually shocking as Irreversible (thankfully!) Climax leaves you with a deep sense of unease as the dark side of each dance is illuminated, and the music beats through an endless nightmare. When the day breaks, the audience, alongside the dancers, feels as if their Coke has been spiked in this feverishly intense dance-horror.
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