It's a Gaspar Noe film.
- Climax review by RW
Who hasn't been to a party where the punch has been spiked with acid and everything has descended into a hellish nightmare? If you are familiar with Noe's back catalogue and liked them you should like this. Slightly looser than his previous work and improvisation heavily used but still very stylised and choreographed with a great soundtrack to boot.
5 out of 5 members found this review helpful.
A film of two halves
- Climax review by LC
This is a difficult film to rate - I found the first half pretty enjoyable viewing, but the second half mostly lost me. Nothing much happens in the first half (other than some wild dancing), but there are lots of inventive camera moves, long takes, colour and sound, and I found it interesting in an 'arty' way. For the second half of the film, things shift more into horror mode as the spiked drink kicks in, but I couldn't really buy into the reality of the situation, and endless scenes of people wandering around screaming hysterically ultimately felt slightly boring. Despite that, there's enough visual invention here that I'd say this is still worth a watch if you appreciate more off-beat and arty films, it's just a shame the largely improvised narrative isn't stronger. (3.5 out of 5)
5 out of 6 members found this review helpful.
Excruciatingly dull dance-hall film
- Climax review by Alphaville
This is a film about a troupe of young “dancers” cavorting around a dance hall to disco music. There’s a lot of hands-in-the-air arm-waving. Someone spikes the sangria with LSD then there’s a lot of shouting and screaming. It’s an ensemble piece with no interesting characters and no plot. All the action takes place in the one location. It’s like an amateur student drama. Towards the end it’s filmed upside down in red tones. Presumably that’s meant to be a metaphor. It certainly impressed gullible critics at arty film festivals. It’s so ridiculously repetitive and OTT it’ll make you laugh before fast-forwarding to the end or just giving up on it.
The DVD Extras are far more interesting. There’s a discussion of the music used and a feature on director Gaspar Noé’s career, which will make you want to watch his next film even less.
2 out of 7 members found this review helpful.
Dazzling inventive
- Climax review by VG
A dizzying, delirious and deranged descent of dance, colour, long takes, sex talk, chaos and intoxicated, altered states of mind.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Climax- not really -more an anti-climax.
- Climax review by SS
Good films tell a story about memorable characters and their struggles.This film is so confused that I found it difficult to like any of the characters or know what they thought about each other -so dull and amateurish. Nor is there a social commentary of any kind like in Amarcord (a fantasy film composed of disjointed images.) or 'American Werewolf in London' or 'World War Z' all fantasy/horror films with zig-zag plot lines.
0 out of 3 members found this review helpful.
Dull
- Climax review by mK
Fast forwarded the last 30 mins and it was still too slow. There is an awfull of talk about nothing and no plot.
0 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Anti-Climax
- Climax review by TE
Ideally a film should be made from this turkey by cutting out everything except the dance and music sequences, and then adding the dance and music bits from the Special Features.
The dialogue and the hyper-angsty, narcissistic characters can be binned with great relief all round, all of the non-dance stuff is alienating in the extreme. Maybe that's what Noe wants, but there is a chill nihilism at the heart of this rather beautifully filmed bore-fest.
0 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Painfully boring.
- Climax review by DSp
I stopped watching this film after about half an hour and immediately felt better. The characters looked young and attractive but sounded dissatisfied and uninteresting.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.