Gasper Noé previews surreally erotic trailer for his new film ‘Climax’

A director always pushing the boundaries of art and film, from his 2015 3D-sex drama Love to his 2009 psychedelic bad-trip that is Enter the Void, his work has reputations that precede themselves. So when it was announced that the suggestively titled Climax was premiering at the Cannes Film Festival Director’s Fortnight, the gasps were audible from London town.

Allegedly filmed in just two weeks, the film is a wild look at the fleeting nature of life, “Birth and death are extraordinary experiences”, the synopsis declares. Set in the mid 90s, we see “20 urban dancers join together for a three-day rehearsal in a closed-down boarding school located at the heart of a forest to share one last dance. They then make one last party around a large sangria bowl.” Evolving from simplicity to strangeness, “if it seems obvious to them that they have been drugged, they neither know by who nor why. And it’s soon impossible for them to resist to their neuroses and psychoses, numbed by the hypnotic and the increasing electric rhythm of the music… While some feel in paradise, most of them plunge into hell”. From this captivating description to the entrancing trailer, Climax looks to be an amalgamation of the two aforementioned cult flicks: as erotic as Love and as surreal as Enter the Void.

With a poster satirising Noé’s contentious past – “You despised I STAND ALONE, you hated IRREVERSIBLE, you loathed ENTER THE VOID, you cursed LOVE, now try CLIMAX” – it’s just made us want it even more. And if it’s anything like the critics have promised, we are very up for a satanic Step Up, especially when its from the mad mind of Gasper Noé and the eclectic skill of cinematographer Benoît Debie. Stay tuned for a release date soon, and until then check out the trailer below.