Trivia

After the film's premiere in Cannes, the audience sat in almost complete silence until the next movie was scheduled to start.

The first thirty minutes of the film has a background sound with a low frequency of 27 Hz which is almost infrasonic (this sounds like a rumble/vibration), similar types of noises are at times used by police to stop riots. According to Gaspar himself, this could only be heard in theaters (which usually have huge sound systems/subwoofers) and not from headphones or regular home theaters. In humans, this noise causes nausea, sickness, and vertigo. It was one of the reasons people walked out of screenings during the first part of the film. In fact, it was added by Thomas Bangalter (from the electronic music group Daft Punk) to get this reaction.

Director Gaspar Noé only had a three-page draft before the movie was shot, so all of the dialogue was improvised.

Newsweek stated that this was the most walked-out-of movie of the year, of 2,400 people at the film's Cannes premiere, 200 walked out.

This began life as a study of a committed relationship for director Gaspar Noé. He wanted to make the film with a real-life couple and husband and wife Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci ideally fit the bill. However, as the trio started workshopping ideas for the film, it started to take on a much darker hue. Noé's original idea later became Love (2015).