Climax

To be honest, I've never seen a film by director Gaspar No� before. I had heard traumatic reactions to "Irreversible" and I was told I might like "Enter the Void," but I never got around to it. Seeing that "Climax" was a dance/horror film a la "Suspiria" (which is referenced early on), I was intrigued.

Despite No� knowing his way around a camera and clearly having a vision, "Climax" just felt like an idea that got filmed without really knowing what it was about.

There are so many stylistic choices in No�'s musical nightmare it's hard to even know if the film was still in the editing stage.

The film opens with a stark overheard shot of a bloody woman writhing around in freshly fallen snow – wailing. The camera then pans down and the view morphs into a low shot of leafless trees which then rolls into the end credits of the film and then into a static shot of an old-school TV and the videotaped interviews of the dancers that are vying to be part of an unnamed dance project. Next to the TV are books on one side and videotapes on the other which reflect '70s surreal horror films, which are clearly a nod to what we are about to see.

The set-up is simple. A bunch of twenty-something dancers gathers in an abandoned school to rehearse for a project we know nothing about, nor do we know who is even heading up the project. We meet a bunch of the dancers in their interviews, so we know that there is a litany of personalities we are going to be experiencing: Different talents, expectations, sexualities, and kids from all over the world.

Once the interviews are over we are treated to a dance-off set to a throbbing soundtrack. It's exciting, but to be fair it's still just a lot of flailing arms and spastic movements, so how good these kids are is still up in the air. Then No� interjects opening credits that project the names of the cast and the various musical acts whose music will be used during the film. (This happens 15 minutes into the film.) Then we are back to the dance floor, where the group is celebrating the end of rehearsals and begin to pound back some homemade sangria. Before you know it, someone realizes the sangria is laced with LSD and everyone starts going on a trip.

The trips usually revolve around a lot of disorientation, obsessive screaming, writhing, hurting themselves (and others), sex, and convulsive paranoia. While No� does a good job of making this section of the film seem like a true acid trip, there comes a point where you really don't want to hear the actors screaming and wailing anymore. The one actor that might be recognizable to American audiences is Sofia Boutella ("Kingsman: The Secret Service"), who has an extended sequence of paranoid delusion that made me want to leave the theatre. Not because it was disturbing, but because – yeah – I get it. She's on a bad trip. Shut up.

Nothing good comes from their imbibing, and we don't find out until the end who actually spiked it. And even then, we don't really know why. Nor do we care. It's like being trapped in a college drama department with attention-seeking actors who accidentally take Molly and continually try and try to pull focus. (Imagine the high-school drama-club version of Anne Hathaway inadvertently taking ecstasy and not knowing how to manage it, much to the annoyance of her fellow actors.)

No� is a talented filmmaker in that he effectively does make you feel like you've done drugs. He has some terrific lengthy shots with no edits and stages the film like it's happening in real time. The problem is we don't really care or understand what we're watching. The whole thing is over-the-top and excessive, and again, there's so much screaming I wished they had given out earplugs before the screening started.

A climax is supposed to be either exciting narratively, or an amazing sexual release. I'm not exactly sure what climax I just got, but sadly, it was neither one of those.