Into the Mind of Gaspar Noe

Gaspar Noe, the Argentinian director, has been making headlines with his recent film that was featured at Cannes titled Climax. Noe, while not competing in Cannes, was awarded the Director Fortnight for Climax. If you didn’t know that and just have been fixating on Noe’s statement about him walking out of Black Panther and despising the Star Wars franchise…well, that’s understandable. Noe has never been the most conventional or people-pleasing artists— he is enigmatic, and has a sharp style and direction that certainly goes against the grain of mainstream Hollywood.

With his most notable movies: Enter the Void, Irreversible, I Stand Alone, Love, and now Climax, Noe exhibits a particular style that either captivates or repulses. Noe tends to employ this psychedelic and drug-induced style of filming, Enter the Void and Climax being prime examples, and tends to use heightened sounds to lure his audiences attention to a specific moment. Furthermore, Noe is most known for his controversial subjects, and at times, the depiction of women in his films.

Nevertheless, nearly all of Gaspar Noe’s film makes one feel like a voyeur— indulgently captivated, and unable to look away in the life of these perverse and intricate characters and narratives. We are essentially watching the inner workings of Noe’s mind.

With Enter the Void, Noe films from this out-of-body experience. The movie is set in the heart of Tokyo, following the spirit of Oscar who is shot after a drug deal goes wrong. Enter the Void is seen through the eyes of Oscar as he travels from the past, present, and the future. We, the audience, live through the eyes of Oscar— the spirit of Oscar— as the camera mimics the movement of a non-corporeal entity floating from one event to the next.

Irreversible employs this camera style similar to Enter the Void, and adds to the voyeurism as the audience follows this nonlinear revenge plot from a woman who was the victim of rape. This film, however, is controversial because of its “in-your-face” attitude, its explicitness, and its drawn-out rape scene. Gaspar Noe never holds back in his films, and often viewers are left wondering exactly how dark and sadistic can he go. This “in-your-face” attitude is a further scene in one of his earlier films I Stand Alone. While I Stand Alone doesn’t necessarily follow the similar styles of Noe’s recent works, with the focus on close-ups, it certainly expresses Noe’s narrative style: dark, controversial, and “in-your-face.”

Love was almost an experimentation, in my opinion, for Gaspar Noe. The movie was an erotic art film released in 3D— probably one of the first “erotic art films” to be screened and released in 3D. In regards to this new technique post-screening of Love, Gaspar Noe stated that “I enjoyed doing my last movie in 3D because even for me as a filmmaker, I had a new toy and enjoyed going to play with the toy.” Love follows the life of the American filmmaker, Murphy, in Paris and his unstable relationship with his girlfriend, Electra. Murphy and Electra’s relationship takes a turn when they invite their alluring neighbor into their bed. In an interview with IndieWire, Noe states, “I just wanted to portray sexual passion as much as possible,” and then refers to Blue is the Warmest Color being a film that expressed such passion and love.

Gaspar Noe shocked the audience with Irreversible in 2002 at Cannes, returned in 2009 with Enter the Void, then with Love in 2015, and finally came back three years later with Climax; Climax being claimed as Noe’s best film yet. It also has earned Gaspar Noe the award Director Fortnight, and the film was acquired by esteemed entertainment company A24 for distribution in the U.S.

Climax centers on the underground scene of French hip-hop dancers who accidentally ingest a drug (most likely LSD?) that leads to them having intense hallucinations— basically, a bad trip. To sum it up, I’ve heard it been called “a dance-horror film on drugs.” If you thought the out-of-body experience was spot on in Enter the Void, you can imagine just how creative and psychedelic Noe goes with this concept. The film has been receiving high praise for its seamless edits and camera movements, and especially for the provocative choreography and direction.

Noe has revealed that he was surprised with the reception and commercial success as he is used to the controversy and negative press of his films. He is so used to negative press that he states, “The last movie I did had 85 percent negative press. I said I hope I get 90.” With Climax receiving positive press and even being acquired by A24, Noe jokes, “I must be doing something wrong… I have to take a long holiday and rethink my career.”

Despite Climax receiving commercial success, avid fans of Gaspar Noe should rest assure that Climax will continue to push the boundaries and explicit “trippy” style of Gaspar Noe.

With A24 acquiring the rights to Climax, the film should be released some time later this year or early next year.

–Lina