Gaspar Noé–Rank/Review | Most Personally Important Films

This film has everything. I've watched it so many times now and never have reviewed it for the simple reason that it is an absolute favorite and I have had no clue how to do it justice. That's because I've thought of this as writing a review for all readers, but I'm going to write what actually interests me.

I love psychedelics and beautiful humans and dance, I've lived a good portion of my life with slightly mentally disrupted artists of some sort or another, and for me there is little more recreational in a film than order dissolving into absolute chaos. And this gets that right. (Note: I should be talking about the importance to queer cinema but that'll be another time.)

The opening interviews are fun, with the easter-egg books; the long take dance sequence ticks another box for me (I have an addiction to Victoria), and then the moment the psychedelics start to hit, it's just horrible and hilarious.

And the hilariousness is important. There is a sort of laughter that implicates you in the wrong that occurs and that forces moral reflection, and I am mostly familiar with this from Gogol's writing, and that is in full force for me here.

Note: It crossed my mind after writing this that during your first viewing this may be pure horror. If so, that's normal, give it some time. And the enjoyment of horror as such, free of humor, can produce the same moral dynamic.

Spoilers start here. Watch first or jump past the block quote.

The first hint that this is spinning out of control is the child dancing by the drugged punchbowl. I already am loving this horrible scenario. But when she locks the boy in the closet while he is tripping, it is very unnerving to find it so comical, and the alternation between horror and amusement. Nothing is okay about this scenario, and it's very amusing, and I am fairly confident based on Noe's work that this is intentional. Being implicated in the horror, I think, affects the morality of a film like this. But we are going to not go down a rabbit hole about why I think his work is deeply humanist.

And another thing—the woman being encouraged to kill herself who is stabbing herself while being egged on. I almost cannot watch this; it is the least acceptable moment and a side of humanity that is one of the few things that when I see it actually makes me violent. I hate that scene. And I have just been struggling with laughter and horror and the change in mood is a slap in the face and another moment to examine our perspective and experience.

On top of that, though, let's not lose sight of the reality that this film is just pure fun. Possession-style psychosexual freakouts in colored hallways, people confiding in each other or hooking up or falling apart, accidentally catching fire (another thing that should not be entertaining, and if it had damaged her I would have had trouble with myself there too—and I haven't even discussed the erotics of the film).

Climax is creative, beautiful, masterfully done, and, like Ebert says about Irréversible, I think it's structurally humanist and a film that somehow provokes moral reflection almost by accident. And honestly, this is a great thing—experiencing art is meant to build a human, encountering art is an interplay between the work and your perception, and in the best case, it changes you. That happens here, and it's still a wonderful watch.

You pretty much must watch this film. If you don't like it, that is okay, but it is one of the best experiments in cinema I've seen done in the last half decade.

And if you actually made it through this, thanks, I might write more in-depth stuff if people actually enjoy this. I'm sure there's more I will write on this one no matter what.

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Most Personally Important Films
Gaspar Noé–Rank/Review
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