It’s a Noé film in style, subject, and narrative structure. The camera floats around in wonderful long takes like an ethereal being, it’s filled with drugs, sex, and violence and we get a spin at the very end that notes the cause of the disaster that just proceeded it (just like irreversible famously did)
Upside down with the camera in large stretches, overhead too
Like Irreversible this is one night and largely seems to take place in real time.
A descent in into hell
There’s a near graphic match above and below here (or at least a really inspired mise-en-scene pairing) with the fruit in the sangria and the dancers on the dance floor. It’s gorgeous and metaphorical—we’re all in this hell
It’s actually pretty rigorously presented—yes we get the closing credits first, and the opening credits come like 1/3 of the way into the movie, but we get the interview section of the actors (with Noe noting his cinematic influences in the frame with Bunuel, Argento Fassbinder and others), then each actor in a social setting, each actor dancing,
Intoxicating neons and shadow mix
Gorgeous hallway shots in this hell
Kinetic
It’s middle-finger cinema like Lars or Bunuel or Pasolini (Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom)—but I agree with the Times saying that Noe is a “better technician than a thinker” which I don’t think you could say about the other three- especially Bunuel (you could compare much of the premise here to Exterminating Angel
great shot of dancer seeming to enter a mural on the wall
Noe is a clear auteur – even if he’s a shock auteur and each film crosses an line (very intentionally) that seem to be for the headlines
Paranoia
It’s nihilism—maybe even beyond that- Noe likes to watch something beautiful get destroyed
‘Noe is a “better technician than a thinker”’ – is being a thinker entirely necessary for great cinema though? The same description could probably be applied to D.W. Griffith or Eisenstein, for example. Not that Noe is on the same level as them (though of the three films of his I’ve seen I rate them at least a little bit higher than you), but isn’t this argument crossing over into “style over substance” territory?
@DeclanG- Good potential call out here. Thanks for the comment. I think highly of Noe- so my critique of him here is just in realization that he may be one of the strongest working technicians- but hasn’t put together the resume so many of his lesser-talented contemporaries have. But still- good call out on the “style over substance” garbage critique. I do not want to be in that camp.
‘Noe is a “better technician than a thinker”’ – is being a thinker entirely necessary for great cinema though? The same description could probably be applied to D.W. Griffith or Eisenstein, for example. Not that Noe is on the same level as them (though of the three films of his I’ve seen I rate them at least a little bit higher than you), but isn’t this argument crossing over into “style over substance” territory?
@DeclanG- Good potential call out here. Thanks for the comment. I think highly of Noe- so my critique of him here is just in realization that he may be one of the strongest working technicians- but hasn’t put together the resume so many of his lesser-talented contemporaries have. But still- good call out on the “style over substance” garbage critique. I do not want to be in that camp.