Climax (2018)

Typically, the results are not nearly as originally dreaded, because no matter how far Noé's films can go off the rails -- some of us are still not over the final few minutes of Enter the Void -- they are always at the very least interesting to consume.

Climax isn't so much about the inevitability of chaos, but about the sadness of watching something beautiful fall apart. And it is never less than electrifying.

More brilliantly deranged, in its microscopic vision of society in collapse, than anything the director has ever inflicted on us.

"Climax" works, at least when it's willing to be a human drama. But then it sinks in that you're watching "Fame" directed by the Marquis de Sade with a Steadicam.

Noe has made a film that's seductive in its rhythms and bold visualization of his young dancers' sometimes beautiful, other times brutal somatic expressiveness.

Even with its morbid finale, Climax implies that the dangerous party's never really over, and the dance never really ends.

Climax is an orgy of youthful enthusiasm, beautifully humanistic repugnance, compellingly animalistic repulsion, dazzlingly choreographed exhilaration and assuredly controlled grace; all soaked in hallucinogen-spiked sangria.

Like his dancers, Noe has locked the viewer in, and there is no way out.

Consumed by the urge to shock, he lays on so much gratuitous nonsense in his lead-up to the hyperkinetic climax that the actors themselves seem unconvinced by what they're called upon to do and the whole thing collapses into absurdity and tedium.

It's often an overwhelming experience, but it is one that is never exhausting.

Climax is a self-indulgent exercise in misery, and an impersonal one because it is so heavily governed by its filmic techniques. The Emperor has no clothes while tripping on LSD.

For those willing to risk a close encounter with this maverick, there are undoubtedly rewards to be found in Climax.