Filmmaker Gaspar Noé has built his entire career and reputation on pushing the boundaries of cinematic acceptability, drumming up just as much controversy as acclaim in the process. 2018’s Climax is far from the most incendiary, contentious, or polarizing movie he’s ever made, but that doesn’t mean it’s not packing his signature stylistic and thematic punch.
In typically experimental fashion, the majority of the cast is comprised of trained dancers as opposed to actual actors, with The Mummy and Rebel Moon‘s Sofia Boutella the only tried-and-true thespian among the ensemble. The story is as weird as it is mind-melting, too, with a dance troupe plied with LSD-spiked sangria during a rehearsal, which causes them to fall into a psychedelic nightmare from which there may be no escape.
Respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of 69 and 65 percent put critics and audiences is almost unanimous agreement, which is incredibly rare for anything bearing Noé’s name. Even more impressively, Climax has managed to capture the imagination of a brand new crowd on streaming, which is most unexpected given that it’s hardly a palatable picture with wide-ranging appeal.
As per FlixPatrol, the provocatively flawed journey through drug-addled dreamscapes of hallucinatory imagery and jolts of genuine terror has been captivating iTunes subscribers, no doubt leaving them with just as many questions as answers given the regularly jarring tonal shifts and trippy visuals that never let up across Climax‘s 96-minute running time.
Noé is a singular talent, but there’s a good reason why he’s been splitting opinion for almost a quarter of a century.
