DCP at Metrograph
Drugs are wack.
My biggest complaint is that it seems to ramp up too quickly. (I won’t spoil anything, or at least I’ll try to use very vague terms) The big violent stuff happens too early and then there’s a lull before big sexy time. Climax could have really benefited from a more linear progression into madness. But I guess that’s been done a lot before. Also, I would have liked to have seen a longer cut personally.
I gotta say, this sort of pushed me an inch toward digital in the digital/film divide. The upside-down, dark-red shot toward the end would be pretty impossible on film. You’d need insanely sensitive stock, especially for the depth of field they’re working with. And then you’d lose all semblance of actual resolution. But still, that’s a super special circumstance. Not everything has to be shot with an Alexa and Zeiss gonna-cut-my-nose-off-they’re-so-sharp Primes. There are more materials at your disposal, people!
You should watch Possession if you like this. It was one of the movies on the right side of the screen during the interview part. It’s Climax but crazier and forty years older.
Short story:
I went to see this with two friends at a 11:45pm screening. Of course, as with every time we go see a film at Metrograph, we were late (about five minutes). We quickly showed the guy at the front our tickets, and he said to go to theater one. Two of us went to the restroom while the other one went in. Now, this other guy, English isn’t his first language and he had no sense of what Climax would be like or who Noé is (all I told him was that the film is most likely a big drug trip/orgy), so he goes into theater one, where the guy told him to go, not reading the sign. Turns out the Metrograph guy told us the wrong room, and my friend went into a screening of My Own Private Idaho. When my other friend and I went into the Climax room, we just assumed he was in there somewhere. He watched My Own Private Idaho all the way through, thinking it was the film we came for. It ended at about the same time. He thought it was decent film.