Noun. provocateur (plural provocateurs) One who engages in provocative behavior, taken from Wikipedia

This is a common theme in Gaspar Noé filmography. Noé an Argentinian/French filmmaker who became famous in for his film I Stand Alone. Gaspar Noé films are heavily inspired in Buñuel and Passolini who also loves provocation with a strong visual style.

If you see Irréversible, Enter the Void and Love, you can understand how Noé loves to portray his characters and what are they looking for: compassion, love, acceptance and of course drugs. His latest film Climax is the proof of another psychedelic trip with troubled characters who are searching these elements and more.

Climax tells the story from events that had to happen in 1996, a large group of dancers is celebrating a three-day rehearsal with a big party, before embarking on a tour to the US. The group is locked in an abandoned school while there is a big snowstorm. The dance group manager Emanuelle (Claude Gajan Maull) made sangria for the celebration which every almost every member of the dance group been drinking.

Thought the night the celebration turns intense after some of the dancers realized that there is something wrong with the sangria, later discovering that might be LSD.

Most of the dancers start feeling agitated, confused and even violent. The party evolve in a game of finding the responsible of the sangria alteration, punish the dancers that have not to drink the sangria.

Gaspar Noé technical achievements in this film are out of this world. The first music number is a smooth single camera trip without cuts that should be included in the list of best long shots in movie history after that Noé explores erratic handheld camera movements to intensify the drama and fear of the dancers under the effect of LSD.

Climax is not only a psychedelic movie but also a horror film that respectfully borrows the best of Dario Argento Suspiria, which is a reference at the very beginning of the movie when every dancer is been interviewed for the casting. The visual of a vintage TV set with books and VHS tapes connects the dots of every dancer personality and feelings.

The soundtrack is powerful as well the cinematography and art direction.