Gaspar Noé’s reputation as an enfant terrible precedes him. Across his daring cinema, he immerses audiences in violence, sex, and drugged-up states of transcendence. And where he goes, controversies follow. Hundreds reportedly walked out of Irreversible (2002) at Cannes. Vincent Cassel, who stars alongside then-wife Monica Bellucci in this unsettling, but exhilarating rape-revenge nocturne, has said that his “hardcore” brother was shocked enough to hurl furious expletives at the screen during the premiere.
But neither Noé nor the other auteurs of the New French Extremity typically provoke for provocation’s sake. In that visceral wave of transgression at the turn of the millennium, some directors manipulated scenes of brutality to pose acute ethical questions. Others explored the limits of corporeal experience as an aesthetic experiment. How might cinema approximate extreme sensation—pain and pleasure? Noé answers from nightclubs and bedrooms, where characters philosophize, smoke, and make love beneath suggestive posters: Pasolini, Kubrick, Godard.
Thrumming noise and fast-flashing lights make the pulsating ecstasies of clubbing in Paris and Tokyo vivid in Irreversible and Enter the Void (2009); the screen often abstracts into pure color and pattern when substances course through characters’ bloodstreams. Obliterating distance between character and spectator, Noé also exposes his male protagonists’ innermost thoughts in intimate voiceover in these two films, or looks at tenebrous worlds with them in first-person perspective.
In disorienting, rupturing moments, images might spin off that terrestrial axis into dark skies, untethering from the mortal plane. In Lux Æterna (2019), Noé takes flight from the base desires of men to turn his eye toward divine femininity. Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Béatrice Dalle, this lurid film scorches the lines between women, witches, and the high art of performance, reveling in chaos and hot tempers. Whether Noé extends an invitation to enter a film set or the void, a night with him is hard to forget.

Gaspar Noé&#8217;s reputation as an enfant terrible precedes him. Across his daring cinema, he immerses audiences in violence, sex, and drugged-up states of transcendence. And where he goes, controversies follow. Hundreds reportedly walked out of Irreversible (2002) at Cannes. Vincent Cassel, who stars alongside then-wife Monica Bellucci in this unsettling, but exhilarating rape-revenge nocturne, has said that his &#8220;hardcore&#8221; brother was shocked enough to hurl furious expletives at the screen during the premiere.
But neither Noé nor the other auteurs of the New French Extremity typically provoke for provocation&#8217;s sake. In that visceral wave of transgression at the turn of the millennium, some directors manipulated scenes of brutality to pose acute ethical questions. Others explored the limits of corporeal experience as an aesthetic experiment. How might cinema approximate extreme sensation&#8212;pain and pleasure? Noé answers from nightclubs and bedrooms, where characters philosophize, smoke, and make love beneath suggestive posters: Pasolini, Kubrick, Godard.
Thrumming noise and fast-flashing lights make the pulsating ecstasies of clubbing in Paris and Tokyo vivid in Irreversible and Enter the Void (2009); the screen often abstracts into pure color and pattern when substances course through characters&#8217; bloodstreams. Obliterating distance between character and spectator, Noé also exposes his male protagonists&#8217; innermost thoughts in intimate voiceover in these two films, or looks at tenebrous worlds with them in first-person perspective.
In disorienting, rupturing moments, images might spin off that terrestrial axis into dark skies, untethering from the mortal plane. In Lux Æterna (2019), Noé takes flight from the base desires of men to turn his eye toward divine femininity. Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Béatrice Dalle, this lurid film scorches the lines between women, witches, and the high art of performance, reveling in chaos and hot tempers. Whether Noé extends an invitation to enter a film set or the void, a night with him is hard to forget.

Love and Ecstasy: The Films of Gaspar Noé

LOVE AND ECSTASY: THE FILMS OF GASPAR NOÉ

Gaspar Noé’s reputation as an enfant terrible precedes him; where the French-Argentine auteur goes, controversies follow. Immersed in violence, sex, and the infernal ecstasies of nightlife and the cinematic arts, the transgressive films of this triple bill are daring, heartfelt, and hard to forget.

Gaspar Noé&#8217;s reputation as an enfant terrible precedes him; where the French-Argentine auteur goes, controversies follow. Immersed in violence, sex, and the infernal ecstasies of nightlife and the cinematic arts, the transgressive films of this triple bill are daring, heartfelt, and hard to forget.