GASPAR NOE

I STAND ALONE 1998 | IRREVERSIBLE 2002 | ENTER THE VOID 2009 | LOVE 2015 | CLIMAX 2018

I STAND ALONE

Is there more to Gaspar Noé than a self-proclaimed L'Enfant-terrible indulging in ‘extreme cinema’ for the sake of notoriety and self-promotion?

Born in Argentina in 1963, Noé studied photography and cinema in Paris before making Carne (1991), an impressive short film about a horse-butcher who avenges the rape of his daughter on the wrong man. It was Noé’s first collaboration with actor Philippe Nahon, who played the central role in I Stand Alone (1998, a film that more or less picks up where Carne leaves off), and who briefly (but crucially) reappears in the opening sequence of Irreversible (2002). Noé made a few TV commercials (including a sexually explicit promotion for condoms) before securing funding for his first feature. He described I Stand Alone as “the tragedy of an unemployed butcher struggling to survive in the bowels of the country”, a film that was intended to “oppose French cinema and dishonour France”. While the film polarised audiences to an extent, it provoked far less outrage than Noé expected … and presumably hoped for. He set out to “offend the complacent conservatism of the French film industry”, anticipating that they would ban the film. Instead, it won the Critic's Prize at Cannes and was widely praised. Bugger!

I Stand Alone has been compared to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1975), primarily for using a similarly disturbing first-person monologue that takes place inside the mind of the central character (and with equally scant motivational explanation). The butcher’s contemptible tirade is intended to inhibit viewer identification while allowing Noé to (as he said) “reinsert the audience repeatedly into the narrative”. Despite (or perhaps because of) experiencing the tormented self-loathing of the man from the inside, Noe’s intention was for the viewer to gradually develop empathy for him (which is not the same as identification, of course), while the film traces his path to a kind of redemption. While the viewer may want the butcher to resist his dark impulses, Noé denies them (as well as his protagonist) such an easy-out. Just when the butcher is about to make a ‘right’ choice, the carpet is pulled away and the audience is left struggling with the actions of a protagonist who refuses to conform to reassuring movie-going expectations. The viewer is left to reconcile the film as best they can because Noé patently refuses to do it for them.

IRREVERSIBLE

Noé may have failed to court the degree of controversy he sought with I Stand Alone, but he succeeded spectacularly with Irreversible. Reports of fainting and vomiting at the Cannes premiere guaranteed good box office. I dare say many people will be anxious going into the film, but those who find the inner fortitude to brave the punishing onslaught of the first half might be surprised to discover how philosophically and morally insightful the film turns out to be.

Shot quickly using a compact Super 16mm camera and no script (nearly all of the dialogue was improvised), Irreversible is composed of a series of sonic and visual provocations, such as the gravity-defying camera work and the unrelenting throb of the sub-heavy score (in which a 27-hertz tone is used to induce nausea). While the camerawork is responsible for most of the dysrhythmic effects (particularly in the opening and closing scenes), the most visually impacting moments were added in post-production: such as the brutal fire-hydrant sequence and the equally notorious rape scene.

Some critics have talked about a reworking of Eisenstein’s theory of the ‘cinema of attractions’ in Noé’s films (a theory based on confrontational juxtaposition intended to induce primal responses in the viewer). Noé’s avowed intention was to make it difficult for the viewer to get caught up in the narrative so that they could be more objectively aware of what they’re watching and (crucially) what they make of it. He wanted to emphasise ideas, believing that shocking viewers into a trance-state will enable them to receive ideas more clearly, although one could argue that viewers in shock are likely to be more concerned with maintaining equilibrium than considering thematic subtexts. Nevertheless, one leaves Irreversible with many thoughts and feelings that directly relate to the act of watching and (in a sense) participating in the film. The hardy viewer might be able to pull some of these ideas together while watching the film, but the full strength of Noé’s argument becomes apparent the more one reflects on it.

Like them or not, I Stand Alone and Irreversible are acts of protest. Noé literally dares his audience to condemn the films (and him) of the very things they criticise. Similar in some respects to the thematic preoccupations of Michael Haneke and Urlich Siedl, Noé’s films consider our complex relationship with violence, not only in terms of how it’s sanctioned in the real world but how blithely it is used in movies. Films such as these function as cinematic Trojan-horses, luring viewers (and critics!) into revealing themselves through their reactive responses.

Irreversible turns the revenge-movie on its head, literally. By reversing the order of events, Noé denies the cathartic pleasure often associated with revenge-movies. Our relationship with the film is, therefore, more analytical than usual, albeit in retrospect rather than during the screening, and (crucially) much less complicit. I Stand Alone and Irreversible reveal the consequences of choice, asking us to question what we watch and why. There is no vicarious catharsis in Irreversible, just a loud and vehement NO!.

ENTER THE VOID

The last-minute inclusion of Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void (2009) in the 2010 NZ International Film Festival meant that the single screening of the film would most likely end the festival on a polarising note, but most of the people I spoke to afterwards thought it was silly at best, puerile at worst. That may be a bit unfair, but I have to admit that while it wasn’t included among my top picks of the year, I have to say that Enter the Void wasn’t as bad (in my view) as the general reaction suggests. The Kubrickesque touches were fun, and despite taking an exceedingly long time to come, the final transcendent moments closed the festival on a note that spoke not only of the inevitable end of all things but an optimistic, perhaps even naïve anticipation of renewal.

If one can get passed the excess of Noé’s filmmaking, one might find ideas and (dare I say, necessary) provocations worthy of one’s attention. In my view (and I could be wrong), at the heart of Noé’s work (even this thumping over-emphatic ‘ultimate-trip’) lies the bruised soul of a disillusioned idealist. There's anger at the core of his films, tempered (only just) by a yearning for honesty, purity and hope. It seems to me that Noé aspires to create genuinely thought-provoking, challenging, truthful cinema, even when he’s at his most excessive. He may not be in the same league as Pasolini, but the spirit is there.

Indeed, at the very least Noé is committed to provoking a visceral reaction in the viewer, which he takes further in Love (2015) and Climax (2018).

LOVE

I guess it was only a matter of time before Gaspar the provocateur made a film featuring blunt unsimulated sex. What might come as a surprise to some is that the director of Irreversible has made a film that is a far-from-offensive meditation on sentimental love. Given Gaspar’s enthusiasm for the films of Stanley Kubrick (which I share), one can’t help wondering if Love was inspired (to a degree at least) by Eyes Wide Shut (still an unfairly maligned masterwork, in my view), or by Stanley’s apparent unfulfilled ambition to make a sexually explicit film with beautiful young actors and ultra-high-tech equipment.

No stranger to juxtaposing the sacred with the profane, the beautiful with the repulsive and the exquisite with the risible, Noé presents the, er, “ins and outs” of a failing relationship by using sex as a primary narrative, er, “tool”. The main character, Murphy, isn’t a particularly centred young man. Deep down, he’s not very confident, but he dreams (and talks) about making a film about loving and pure sexuality. It transpires that Noe’s Love is the very film Murphy aspires to make.

While it’s relatively easy to dismiss Love (as the majority of critics and reviewers have), and while it’s not a film I have any great need to return to (unlike Eyes Wide Shut, the ultimate thinking-person’s Christmas movie [!], which I would happily give over to at the drop of a hat), I nevertheless wonder why it has been given such short-shrift by the critical community, how so many of them failed to at least acknowledge Noe’s sincere, fundamentally honest, perhaps even heartfelt romantic naturalism, and the genuine compassion Noé extends to his young protagonists. It could be that puritanism runs more deeply than many would like to think. Ever the barrier-breaker, it seems to me that Noe’s film is an honest attempt to rid us of our shared metaphoric fig leaf. Whether the film ultimately works or not is a matter of opinion, but I would say that a prerequisite for making a judgement would be to first set aside — if one can — one’s own fig leaf.

CLIMAX

It was with some trepidation (if I’m honest) that I went to the 2018 festival screening of Climax — a blatantly witty title from the man who previously made Love. I knew nothing about what I was about to see (refusing to even read the festival programme notes let alone any reviews), and was prepared to be disappointed, prepared in fact to find myself wondering if my defence of Noé over the years has been (as local critics have suggested to me) misplaced. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the thrill of what leapt from the large Civic screen and sound system, an unfettered, no-holds-barred celebration of fit, youthful, life-affirming positivism. The 10-minute single-take dance sequence that sets the film in motion is a tour-de-force amalgam of near-feral hip hop dancing and gravity-defying camera movement, an expression of utopian connectedness and a plea for tolerance, equality and unity that was pure exhilaration. I’m not sure if I can form a positive argument for the ensuing narrative, a simple ‘heaven to hell’ premise on which Noé hangs his ‘bad trip’ experiment in stylised hysteria. Of course, the film has its detractors, many of them in fact, and it’s not hard to see why. One either takes Climax on its own terms or, I guess, not at all. There won’t be many fence-sitters. While the gradual descent into hell is a fun ride, there isn’t a lot of meat on the film’s thematic or intellectual bones, and when the train finally pulls up to the Gates of Hades and the entire film literally turns on its head, I admit to being a little bored by the whole thing. But getting there was quite the, er, trip.