It's winter 1996. An abandoned building in Paris. A group of young dance students have just finished a rehearsal and choose to throw an after-party to celebrate. The party begins harmlessly and predictably enough, until it's learned the sangria they're all drinking has been spiked with a particularly strong kind of LSD. Then, once the drug takes over, the night takes a turn for the horrifying. For everybody.
And that's literally all the plot there is in writer-director (and co-editor) Gaspar Noe's Climax. Noe conceived the premise but then simply told his entire cast and crew to do and say whatever the fuck they wanted to. The result is a film that even Baz Luhrmann would call trippy and stylised, with non-stop choreography and numerous extended takes including one that lasts 45 minutes. Plus, as you'd expect, it becomes relentlessly sexual and violent. Filmed in just 15 days and based loosely on a real-life drink-spiking incident involving a French dance troupe in 1996, I didn't know whether to reward myself or call myself a sicko once I managed to finish this movie. It is beyond any doubt one of the most relentless works, of any kind, I have ever seen. Either way, I doubt anybody could shake it once they saw it. 7/10.
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