It took Gaspar Noé almost dying to transform his usually grim and nihilistic take on life into something wholly new with Vortex, the director’s seventh feature film. Well, maybe not wholly new. His latest is still grim and nihilistic, but there is an empathy present that boarders on humanistic. That’s a quality that might seem antithetical to describing Noé’s work, but what appears in only trace amounts – and only if you’re really engaging with his films – in previous of the director’s titles like Enter the Void and Climax takes an uneasy spotlight in Vortex, even as it works alongside Noé’s more signature preoccupations like dread and terror.
In early 2020, the Paris-based Argentine filmmaker, who is 58 years old, suffered a near fatal brain hemorrhage which ultimately helped inspire the story for Vortex. The opening line of text for the film, “To all those whose brains will decompose before their hearts,” leaves no doubt as to what’s on Noé’s mind with this picture.
