You can’t please everyone. And for filmmaker Gaspar Noé, that saying is especially true. The Argentine writer-director is known, over the course of his feature film career, to push boundaries. And that’s especially true with his latest film, “Climax,” which screened at Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes.
“Climax” screened recently and was one of the more divided films shown at the festival. However, Noé’s film was able to please enough jury members, as it received the top honor at the Directors’ Fortnight by winning the Art Cinema Award. “Climax” follows a dance troupe’s descent into hell, and if it wasn’t for Lars von Trier, might have been one of the more wild films at Cannes.
READ MORE: Gaspar Noé’s ‘Climax’: An Orgy Of Sex, Drugs, Horror & Death [Cannes Review]
This is high praise for a film that Noé admits is his own “worst of” compilation. The director was interviewed by the good folks over at Directors’ Fortnight about the project and he said, “Musicians, after several albums, release a ‘best of’ compilation. I feel like this film is a ‘worst of’ compilation of my career and my lingering obsessions.”
And following with the theme of not pleasing everyone, Noé was recently interviewed by Variety, where he was asked about some of the recent films that he’s seen. If asked if he’s seen the most talked-about movies of the year, “Black Panther,” the director didn’t pull punches with his harsh critique of the film:
“I tried ‘Black Panther.’ I escaped from the cinema after 20 minutes. I thought it was as bad as ‘Star Wars.’ I hated ‘Star Wars.’ I hated the R&B music [in ‘Black Panther’]. The music was so bad that I had to escape. But you know which one I like? What’s the name of the Denis Villeneuve movie? ’Arrival.’ That one was good.”
Ouch.
But let’s be honest, “Black Panther” is probably not going to interest someone who directed films like “Enter the Void” and “Irréversible.” Let’s just say, even though ‘Panther’ had a very unique and powerful message for a superhero film, the Marvel Studios production is far tamer than anything Noé is creating.
The interview also talks about how sexuality plays a large role in the filmmaker’s work. When asked why he thinks sexuality is such a taboo thing in film, Noé talked about how he was asked time and time again about penises being shown in his film “Love:”
“Come on! I have a penis. The guys who were asking me those questions have a penis. Why is it in American culture, the penis is the face of all evil in this world? If your dad didn’t have one and didn’t use it with your mom, you wouldn’t be here. It’s the source of life. It’s not the source of death. Weapons are the source of death. In every American movie, there are machine guns, whatever. Even on Instagram, why can you not show an erect penis? It’s a nice part of the body, like my hand, like my nose.”
As mentioned above, Gaspar Noé’s latest film “Climax” had its world premiere at Cannes, but was picked up by A24 for distribution in the US. So, Stateside, we are guaranteed plenty of nice body parts in our future.