Hedonizmus, nihilizmus a morálny kolaps: filozofická interpretácia Noého filmu Climax

Abstract: The following paper analyzes Gaspar Noé’s Climax (2018) as an allegory of the moral disintegration in postmodern society. Through film analysis and philosophical reflection, it examines the representation of hedonism, nihilism, and the breakdown of social bonds within an isolated community of dancers that functions in the film as an allegorical micro-society reflecting the value and moral contradictions of contemporary society. The aim of the paper is to interpret Climax as a philosophical and ethical reflection on moral disintegration, revealing the tensions between individualism, pleasure, and the failure of collective values in postmodern culture.
Keywords: Gaspar Noé, Climax, hedonism, nihilism, moral disintegration, postmodern society

Abstrakt: Nasledujúci príspevok analyzuje film Gaspara Noého Climax (2018) ako alegóriu morálnej dezintegrácie v postmodernej spoločnosti. Prostredníctvom filmovej analýzy a filozofickej reflexie skúmame reprezentáciu hedonizmu, nihilizmu a rozpadu sociálnych väzieb v izolovanej komunite tanečníkov, ktorá vo filme funguje ako alegorická mikrosocieta odrážajúca hodnotové a morálne rozpory súčasnej doby. Cieľom príspevku je interpretovať Climax ako filozoficko-etickú reflexiu morálnej dezintegrácie, v ktorej sa odhaľuje napätie medzi individualizmom, pôžitkom a zlyhaním kolektívnych hodnôt postmodernej kultúry.
Kľúčové slová: Gaspar Noé, Climax, hedonizmus, nihilizmus, morálna dezintegrácia, postmoderná spoločnosť

Ilustrácia: vygenerované AI (2025)

Introduction

Argentine-French director Gaspar Noé is one of the most original and controversial filmmakers in contemporary cinema. His films explore questions about the nature of violence, sexuality, and existence itself, examining the dark sides of human psychology and the boundaries of perceiving reality (Hanley, 2018). Noé belongs to the main representatives of "cinéma du corps" (cinema of the body), a French film movement that confronts audiences with violent and transgressive content (Palmer, 2011, p. 57). These films, however, aren't just empty provocation. They bring critical reflection on the current state of society, culture, and its values.

Climax (2018) is one of Noé's finest works. The story, inspired by real events, offers a disturbing look at what can happen when collective morality collapses during a single night marked by alcohol, psychotropic substances, and isolation. The film works as an allegory of the value crisis in postmodern society, capturing the transition from hedonistic euphoria to absolute nihilism.

The Breakdown of Collective Harmony

The film takes place in the 1990s, in an abandoned school where a group of young dancers meets for rehearsal before an international tour. Noé first introduces them through video recordings from their auditions, where they talk about their ambitions, desires, and fears. The group represents various nationalities, sexual orientations, and temperaments. That creates an image of a diverse but seemingly unified community.

After the opening interviews comes a virtuoso choreography, aesthetically impressive and rhythmically precise. The synchronized movements represent the peak of collective harmony, which we can interpret as a symbol of order and belonging. Here Noé uses long, fluid shots where the camera follows the dancers as an organic whole. Their bodies move in perfect synchronization, which creates a visual metaphor of a functional community where each individual contributes to the whole while maintaining their individuality.

After the rehearsal comes a party. The dancers drink sangria that someone has secretly laced with LSD. When everyone gradually begins to feel the drug's effects, their apparent unity starts to break down. Noé captures this moment subtly, first through changed facial expressions, disoriented looks, and nervous gestures. The dancers realize something is wrong, but they don't yet know what.

From this moment, their dance begins to change. The movements suddenly become uncoordinated, spasmodic, and aggressive. The contamination motif itself, the sangria mixed with LSD, functions here as a catalyst for moral disintegration. Even symbolically, the red drink in a bowl placed on the table resembles a bloody vessel. Around it gather the dancers, unaware of what awaits them.

From Ecstasy to Agony

Dance in Climax expresses the hedonism typical for postmodern people who constantly seek new sources of pleasure, stimulation, and immediate satisfaction. Dance as a form of physical self-expression is, in this context, an embodiment of pleasure and freedom.

However, under the influence of LSD, the liberating energy of the dancers quickly transforms into chaos with tragic outcomes. Hedonism takes shape in their bodies not only as joy of movement but also as a gradual loss of control that culminates in violence, suffering, and self-destruction. The dancers, who initially embodied the hedonistic ethos of contemporary culture, living for the moment, physicality, and pleasure, transform into symbols of hedonistic exhaustion and moral disintegration. At the same time, the paradox of hedonism reveals itself: the desire for maximum pleasure often leads to unhappiness or suffering.

Gilles Lipovetsky shows in The Era of Emptiness (1983/2008) that contemporary society is characterized by the aestheticization of everyday life and orientation toward pleasure and individual satisfaction. Meanwhile, collective values and higher goals recede into the background. Hedonism becomes the dominant driving force of Western culture, but instead of bringing liberation and happiness, it often leads to psychological exhaustion, loneliness, and a sense of emptiness.

As Gaspar Noé shows in Climax, hedonism without ethical boundaries doesn't lead to freedom and true satisfaction. Instead, it often leads to nihilism, where social values, bonds, and rationality collapse. From this perspective, hedonism appears as an escape route that offers immediate satisfaction. At the same time, it destroys the individual, who loses themselves in the desperate pursuit of pleasure.

Microcosm of Postmodern Society: Diversity Without Unity

The dance group in Climax functions as a microcosm of postmodern society, multiethnic, sexually diverse, yet fragmented. At first glance, it appears to be a functional community that shares a common passion for dance. However, as it gradually becomes clear, this unity is only superficial. Their choreography is not the result of deep bonds or shared values but merely a technical coordination of movements.

When the effects of LSD begin to disrupt the perception of reality, the illusion of unity immediately collapses. In the moment of crisis, when everyone turns against everyone, it becomes clear that the dancers are not bound by any moral framework, any solidarity, or trust.

Zygmunt Bauman uses the concept of liquidity in Liquid Modernity (2000) to describe the current state of society where stable bonds give way to temporary and unstable forms of coexistence. The group of dancers embodies this liquidity. Their relationships are pragmatic, and in the moment of crisis it becomes clear they never had deeper anchoring.

The film reveals a key problem: when diversity is not supported by shared values, in a crisis situation it becomes a source of mutual blame and division. As paranoia intensifies and the dancers search for someone to blame for the contaminated sangria, the fragile facade of their multicultural unity collapses entirely.

This scapegoating mechanism appears most clearly in how they treat Omar. Omar is a devout Muslim dancer who abstains from alcohol for religious reasons and therefore didn't drink the sangria. In the collective hysteria, his religious difference suddenly transforms him into a suspect. What was previously just accepted as part of the group's diversity now sets him apart as an outsider. His abstinence from what had become a defining group ritual makes him vulnerable to collective aggression. The group, their judgment impaired by LSD and fear, turns against Omar with frightening speed. They forcibly throw him out into the snowstorm, locking him outside the building where he ultimately freezes to death.

The scene demonstrates how quickly a supposedly tolerant, diverse community can descend into violence when social order breaks down. The film suggests that diversity without shared values becomes fragile during crisis. When fear and panic take over, the group turns against those who are perceived as different.

Beneath the Surface of Civilization

One of the most unsettling aspects of Climax is the speed with which the apparent harmony within the group of dancers breaks down. A single trigger, the LSD-laced sangria, is enough to reveal the fragility of interpersonal relationships and social norms. Unresolved conflicts, repressed desires, and aggressive tendencies come to the surface. In an atmosphere of rising tension, the dancers begin to suspect each other of contamination. Verbal attacks gradually escalate into physical violence.

With Omar expelled into the freezing night, the group's paranoid search for a culprit continues. Another dancer who didn't drink becomes the next target. The violence reaches a particularly brutal manifestation in a scene where the dancer Dom attacks Lou, who didn't drink the sangria because she's pregnant. Dom kicks Lou repeatedly in the stomach, refusing to believe her claims of pregnancy. Lou, injured and crying, later confronts the group on the dance floor. But the collective turns against her completely. By now all heavily affected by LSD, they accuse her of having spiked the drink.

Initially Lou takes up a knife to defend herself. But the taunts and jeers of the mob cause her to have a complete breakdown. In a harrowing moment of collective cruelty, the group chants for her to kill herself. She responds by punching herself in the pregnant stomach and slashing her own face and arm with the knife as they encourage her violence. What makes this scene particularly disturbing is that Lou is sober and she acts out of psychological pressure and desperation, not drug-induced delirium. Within minutes, a civilized community transforms into a mob actively driving a pregnant woman toward self-destruction.

We can interpret this breakdown of values through Freud's concept of civilization as a repressive structure. As Freud explains in Civilization and Its Discontents (1930/2002), beneath the shell of our civilized existence, a hidden struggle constantly takes place between drives and social norms.

According to him, civilization arises at the cost of suppressing the most basic drives, primarily aggression and sexuality. These drives are part of the unconscious psychic component called the "id”. This instinctual part of the psyche works according to the pleasure principle and it tries to immediately satisfy impulses, regardless of moral, social, or rational boundaries. Social order is only possible when the "ego" and "superego" internalize external norms and prohibitions. These mechanisms keep the impulses under control.

However, this suppression simultaneously creates a deep internal conflict that can result in anxiety and frustration. In extreme situations, such as collective intoxication, the regulatory mechanisms weaken. This allows the "id" to surface. In such moments, what Freud considered the dark side of human nature emerges in full force. These unconscious drives can lead to uncontrolled and destructive behavior when social norms fail to restrain them.

One of the most striking examples of this release of repressed drives is the transformation of sexuality from consensual expression of desire into a tool of dominance and aggression. As Michel Foucault shows in The History of Sexuality (1976/2020), modern society not only regulates sexuality but also shapes it through discourses of power and knowledge that determine what is permissible and what is deviant. In Climax we observe the opposite process – the breakdown of these mechanisms and the release of repressed drives.

The film depicts violations of fundamental sexual norms, including the incest taboo. Brother and sister Taylor and Gazelle, who at the beginning of the evening behaved toward each other with natural sibling tension, end up in a sexual situation. The incest taboo, which Freud considered the foundation of civilization, is violated. Noé doesn't show this scene as a taboo fantasy but as a consequence of moral collapse. There's nothing liberating in it, only a disturbing emptiness.

As Georges Bataille argues in Eroticism (1957/1986), erotic experience is inseparably connected with violating taboos and crossing boundaries. Noé, however, turns this idea on its head. He doesn't show transgression as a liberating act but as a destructive force. When transgression loses ethical limits, freedom doesn't arise. Chaos and violence do.

Climax captures the gradual transformation of characters under the influence of LSD. It shows how power dynamics, hidden prejudices, and sexual frustrations appear in extreme conditions. Through this collective psychosis, Noé explores the fragility of social conventions and their rapid breakdown, accompanied by the loss of moral inhibitions. The transformation is even more unsettling, as it happens over a single night, similar to how established social structures can quickly collapse during crises or upheavals. The use of a single night as a time frame works as a metaphor for the fragility of social norms. It shows how quickly seemingly civilized beings can transform into their "lowest selves" when social barriers are removed.

Spatial isolation amplifies the effect. The abandoned school building works as a hermetically sealed space that intensifies psychological pressure on the characters. In panic, the dancers split into small groups or isolate themselves completely. Some remain in the dance hall, others flee to corridors and rooms. The claustrophobic atmosphere gradually deepens their paranoia. Long corridors, empty rooms, and industrial spaces create a labyrinth. In this labyrinth the characters lose themselves not only physically but also morally.

The most devastating symbol of this collapse is the death of Tito, the small son of troupe leader Emmanuelle. The boy accidentally drinks the contaminated sangria. To protect him from the chaos, Emmanuelle locks him in a room that contains the building's electrical system, not realizing the dangers. Later in the film, when the lights go out, it is revealed that Tito, in his drug-induced state, accidentally tripped the power supply and electrocuted himself. Overwhelmed by grief and guilt, Emmanuelle eventually takes her own life. This tragedy represents the ultimate failure of civilization's most fundamental protective instinct: a parent's care for their child. In attempting to shield Tito from the moral chaos surrounding them, Emmanuelle inadvertently creates the conditions for his death.

Conclusion

In one of the film’s most striking moments, Noé inverts the camera, turning the image upside down as the horrific chaos unfolds in the dance hall. This reversal becomes a powerful visual metaphor for a world where all established moral order has been turned on its head, marking the point at which Climax reaches its darkest and most complete vision of moral collapse.

What began as collective euphoria ends in tragedy. Several dancers die, others lose their sanity, and the space that once symbolized creativity and community turns into a scene of death and despair. In this nightmarish microcosm there is no place for compassion, solidarity, or even basic humanity.

Noé reveals how quickly a seemingly united community can fall apart when genuine shared values are absent and hedonism replaces a deeper sense of existence. The film is a warning about the value vacuum of postmodern society. It reminds us that civilization is a fragile construction that can quickly collapse if it's not supported by shared ethical principles and meaningful interpersonal relationships.

Autorka: Mgr. Stanislava Baranová
Katedra etiky a estetiky, Filozofická fakulta, Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre
Príspevok vznikol vďaka podpore projektu VEGA 1/0158/23: Nenáboženská spirituálna gramotnosť: vznik, rozvíjanie v detstve a význam v dospelosti a vďaka podpore projektu UGA II/1/2025: Mocenská dynamika partnerských vzťahov v rodových a etických kontextoch.

References

BATAILLE, G. 1986. Eroticism: Death and Sensuality. London: Marion Boyars, 1986, 280 p. ISBN 978-0714528724.

BAUMAN, Z. 2000. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000, 240 p. ISBN 978-0745624105.

FOUCAULT, M. 2020. The History of Sexuality 1: The Will to Knowledge. London: Penguin Books, 2020, 176 p. ISBN 978-0241385982.

FREUD, S. 2002. Civilization and Its Discontents. London: Penguin Books, 2002, 144 p. ISBN 978-0141182360.

HANLEY, S. 2018. Gaspar Noé: Pure Filth. (online) (cit. 19.10.2025) Available at: https://www.dazeddigital.com/film-tv/article/41666/1/gaspar-noe-climax-i...

LIPOVETSKY, G. 2008. Éra prázdnoty: Úvahy o současném individualismu. Prague: Prostor, 2008, 358 p. ISBN 8072601905.

PALMER, T. 2011. Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2011, 304 p. ISBN 978-0819568274.