Climax

A dance troupe takes a night off to party and relax, but an unexpected turn derails plans. 

Climax was a difficult watch for me. Once you get past the intros to the actual body of the work, there is an even longer portion where characters just continue to establish their characters by bragging about sexual conquests and just general shit-talking amongst each other. It goes on for so long I started to feel like it would never end, but once the action started, then I started to feel like THAT would never end. In other words, I just kept asking myself when it was going to end. Many red herrings are thrown about, but weirdly enough, it's kind of like the red herrings ARE the entire movie. Subplots swirl around each other, never evolving to a main story line but refusing to die. 

Shot very interesting, with heavy contrasting red and green lighting, as the camera angle defies the viewer's expectations for where the ground vs the ceiling should be. Normal movie structures as simple as 'title at beginning', 'credits at end', are turned on end to keep you thrown off and confused. I even paused the movie at one point when I became so confused that I wondered if I was mistakenly watching the ending. An unrelenting EDM beat constantly propels the frenetic action and contorted movement. All in all, very appropriate for the context, and successfully creates an agitating and distressing viewing experience. 

French, subtitled.

Reviewed by: Noël

Recommended by: Paris

Notable scenes: Opening "testimonials" by the cast play on a tv surrounded by a carefully curated display of books and movie cases. I assume this is the movie Paris mentioned pausing to read all the titles? So did I. And now I have more movies to watch.

Also, Sofia Boutella is great - she has a fantastic scene that feels like a continuous shot sequence of a mental break where you can really follow her every emotional shift. 

Recommend to Suzanne: No.