The Films of Gaspar Noé: Discussion & Analysis

[AbelTim]

Same premise as my William Friedkin thread (but now in the right place).

Gaspar Noé is one of most provocative director's of the last 20 years. He has challenged viewers with films such as I Stand Alone, Irreversible and Love.

His body of work is small but there is plenty to discuss and analyse.

 

[no country for old wainds]

can we start by agreeing that enter the void is his masterpiece/definitive work, thank you

 

[AbelTim]

can we start by agreeing that enter the void is his masterpiece/definitive work, thank you

I am yet to see that or Love or his latest Vortex.

 

[CiG]

can we start by agreeing that enter the void is his masterpiece/definitive work, thank you

We can, you're welcome.

 

[no country for old wainds]

although i will say i probably had the biggest straight up blast watching climax. has the kind of effect on me that i guess aronofsky's stuff has on other people. aronofsky is either too smart or too dumb to be as good as noe, not sure which.

 

[CiG]

Ha well personally I prefer Aronofsky myself. Noé pleases the senses like few others can but Aronofsky stimulates me much more on an emotional and intellectual level. Also he's no slouch in the visual department either. Though his filmography has a few weak links unlike Noé.

I know what you mean about Climax though. Enter the Void is a beast of a film that impacts you once the dust has settled whereas Climax is an adrenaline rush. Probably why @rms doesn't think it has much replay value. I've come to find with films of a similar energy like Uncut Gems that it's nowhere near as good as the first time I watched it.

 

[no country for old wainds]

i might like the wrestler more than any noe tbf.

all noe films are drug hits to me, more than any other filmmaker i know probably, but there's always a huge emotional element to any good or bad trip i'd argue--in fact i find his films very purely earnestly emotional in a way i don't experience very often. intellectually ... yeah, i mean he gets away with it more than you might expect but i also have to actively avoid scrutinising his subtext too closely because i know he's like this pseudo-profound 10 year old. latest eyeroll was the 2001 poster in irreversible lol, the parallel is obviously there but it doesn't do it any favours.

btw i'm pretty sure i would still love uncut gems after ten viewings.

 

[CiG]

There's definitely emotional content in Noé's films, don't get me wrong, but he tends to balance it out with much nastier elements in a way that makes the whole affair feel quite seedy, which is probably why he's popular within horror/exploitation/extreme circles to some extent. I don't mean for any of this to come across as insulting to Noé of course.

 

[challenge_everything]

can we start by agreeing that enter the void is his masterpiece/definitive work, thank you

Definitive, yes, masterpiece, maybe would need to see it again but I could be convinced.

 

[challenge_everything]

I need to see more Noe actually. Have only seen Climax, Irreversible and Enter the Void.

 

[no country for old wainds]

There's definitely emotional content in Noé's films, don't get me wrong, but he tends to balance it out with much nastier elements in a way that makes the whole affair feel quite seedy, which is probably why he's popular within horror/exploitation/extreme circles to some extent. I don't mean for any of this to come across as insulting to Noé of course.

i don't have the tools to explain this as well as i would like, but... i think for me the seediness and the emotion are inseparable in noe, because it's a primal cinema that casts off the shackles of civilisation/ego/etc and leaves you with the horror and ecstasy of being reduced to pure id, which is something that we best attain through sex and drugs and most fundamentally a close proximity with death, this 'seediness' which all of our many psychological and societal shields are designed to protect us from. the seedy is really just the reality we hide from in normal life, and getting in touch with that reality is a big motivator for consuming art for me and responsible for a lot of its more direct emotional effects.

and i think irreversible for example is consciously aware of this in a blunt kinda way, with the progression from an apelike state (hello kubrick poster) to a perfect picture of civilisation drenched in irony because everything's going backwards and we've actually moved from reality into a fragile and doomed illusion. (there's also maybe a gender theme there where we start with Man and end up with Woman and they meet in the middle in that vaginal tunnel but i haven't thought that through too much lol)

 

[CiG]

lmfao well said!

I agree with all of that I think. I worded what I said poorly I suppose, as I was specifically referring to what stimulates me personally and the elements of seediness while I agree are inseparable in his work tend to detach me emotionally for some reason. Or maybe what I mean is that I don't feel connected to his films emotionally at a level any deeper than repulsion, hatred, anger etc. Something that is visceral but ultimately surface-level and fleeting.

It can't compare for example to the long lasting emotional impact I felt after watching The Fountain.

 

[no country for old wainds]

i haven't seen the fountain in literally about 15 years but i really liked it at the time. i could imagine going either way on second watch lol, it's that kind of movie, i reckon it might still be the one that most gets under my skin though. i never really got anything emotionally out of requiem for a dream, black swan or mother! tbh

and yeah that's actually how i feel about irreversible which is why it's probably my least favourite of the four noes i've seen. all of the others definitely got to me in a more primal way, even love which is incredibly dumb in some ways. i haven't really figured out why yet.

 

[AbelTim]

My first experience with Gaspar Noe was Irreversible. I watched it in my Film Studies class at school. The opening scene with the camera whirling around like it was a in a time warp, navigated by a drunken pilot was really vomit-inducing but kept me watching. The violence and ensuing rape scene are difficult watches but I think Noe wanted to make a film about the ugly side of life and the human condition.

RIP Philippe "The Butcher" Nahon 1938-2020

 

[rms]

been awhile since I attempted/watched enter the void, but i remember almost nothing except I still preferred irreversible. maybe when the wife and kiddo are sleeping I can sneak on some Noe

Ha well personally I prefer Aronofsky myself. Noé pleases the senses like few others can but Aronofsky stimulates me much more on an emotional and intellectual level. Also he's no slouch in the visual department either. Though his filmography has a few weak links unlike Noé.

I know what you mean about Climax though. Enter the Void is a beast of a film that impacts you once the dust has settled whereas Climax is an adrenaline rush. Probably why @rms doesn't think it has much replay value. I've come to find with films of a similar energy like Uncut Gems that it's nowhere near as good as the first time I watched it.

yeah, the ride was cool, but felt like almost an hour and you go through that and it's just not that satisfying...if I want to watch something like that, I ditch a film like climax and head into horror. can't imagine i'd ever give it another go for some time but initial displeasure from trailer & real life does have a negative affect on my opinions, too

and the wrestler! how great. can we even call it an Aronofsky film, though? so different than what he really wants to do with film. or maybe guys like him and Cronenberg (Eastern promises) dabble in things like that just to have some fun from time to time.

 

[no country for old wainds]

i don’t think the wrestler is that different to stuff like black swan and mother! either stylistically (dardennes worship) or thematically, i’ll agree it’s a tonal anomaly though.

i don’t really get singling out eastern promises for cronenberg either, i always think of that as a duo with a history of violence and i think his career over the past 20 years or so has been pretty diverse in general

 

[AbelTim]

I saw Climax in the cinema and it was so beautifully shot and hallucinatory. The beginning part with each dancer being interviewed and explaining themselves was clever and created a relationship between viewer and character. Climax is Noe's first film to receive an overall positive response - "Noé stated jokingly: "I must be doing something wrong. I have to take a long holiday and rethink my career."In another he claimed: "Even my father tells me it's his favorite film, and there's a lot of directors who told me it was my best film. I never worked so little on something and I was never congratulated so much." (wiki quote).
The descension into the hellish landscape of the building as the film progresses is shot quite similarly to Irreversible. Claustrophobic in places. I can't fault it really.

 

[rms]

i don’t think the wrestler is that different to stuff like black swan and mother! either stylistically (dardennes worship) or thematically, i’ll agree it’s a tonal anomaly though.

i don’t really get singling out eastern promises for cronenberg either, i always think of that as a duo with a history of violence and i think his career over the past 20 years or so has been pretty diverse in general

always forgetting about black swan, but I definitely wouldn't say Wrestler is at all comparable to Mother!...that film is much more in line with Pi and Requiem, to me.

i don’t really get singling out eastern promises for cronenberg either, i always think of that as a duo with a history of violence and i think his career over the past 20 years or so has been pretty diverse in general

I mean there's nothing like it in his catalog, it avoids all kinds of sci fi / gory things that built his career. I ignored A History because it sucks, but can be included for no good reason other than acting like the other 18 major films he made clearly depict a style that is very different than those two. Haven't seen any of his past Eastern, though.

 

[CiG]

I think his films like A History of Violence and Eastern Promises are logical extensions of where he went with Spider, which is a film that leaves blatant body horror behind for a more identity-based form of exploration. A Dangerous Method, Cosmopolis, Maps to the Stars, they all deal with themes of identity (and how it interacts interpersonally), memory, psychological affliction etc. I forget who said it but Cronenberg's transition from surface-level/gratuitous body horror into the more multifaceted and complex "horror" of the mind is pretty natural.

Edit: Consider the plot of Eastern Promises, a guy infiltrates the Russian mafia and ends up covered in tattoos per the custom of that world. That's flesh he'll never be able to truly reclaim. That's definitely on some level a form of body horror.

The real question is; where does Fast Company fit in with Cronenberg's body of work?

 

[rms]

Consider the plot of Eastern Promises, a guy infiltrates the Russian mafia and ends up covered in tattoos per the custom of that world. That's flesh he'll never be able to truly reclaim

stretch armstrong over here. but I think I need to (re)watch Spider