LUX ÆTERNA – Review by Leslie Combemale

At the end of his experimental film Lux Aeterna, writer/director and provocateur Gaspar Noé plasters the line “Thank God I’m an atheist” onto the screen. As an auteur, cinema should be Noé’s chosen deity, although whether he did it dirty or created a worthy offering to that god with his movie is a matter of opinion. As Gaspar Noé films go, this is the least objectionable, which honestly wouldn’t take much. The whole thing becomes such a chaotic mess and goes so absurdly over the top, it almost becomes fun. Almost. It’s too bad the only way he felt he might bring joy results in a pounding headache and eyestrain.

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TIFF18 Review: CLIMAX – Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

It’s been sixteen years since the notorious French master of excess Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible, with its unforgettable nine-minute long rape scene, truly shocked audiences. Movies like 2009’s Enter the Void and 2015’s Love have seen the filmmaker pushing the envelope of acceptability and explicitness in ways that have become perhaps paradoxically something to be expected. Climax is one of his most euphoric, succinct, and effective movies in over a decade

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