Gaspar Noe’s Climax

“The Ultimate Bad Trip” is how the ad should read for Gaspar Noe’s harrowing, hallucinatory nightmare of a rave that goes disastrously wrong.

The film begins showing a TV monitor and interviews with an array of dancers who describe the liberating and transformative nature of dancing, and what it means in their lives. But if you notice, a stack of DVDs frame one side of the screen with titles like Salo, Possession, Suspiria, Querelle, Un Chien Adanlou, Angst, Eraserhead– and if you know the films of Gaspar Noe (Irreversible), that’s a warning of what you’re about to see.

A dance company rehearses their new piece in a remote warehouse-like structure. Their dance movements are thrilling to watch- the eclectic group of multi-ethnic kids hurl their bodies into motion with spectacular abandon and style. Afterwards there’s an after-party, with a DJ and bowls of sangria. The interactions reveal the members of the troupe- the arrogant cute stud, who brags he’s bedded much of the company, the two girlfriends fighting, the group leader and her little son who she tries to send off to bed, a young woman hiding her pregnancy, the brother with an unhealthy obsession over his sister, etc. But soon it becomes clear that someone has doused the punch with some lethal LSD and everything quickly unravels.

All of Noe’s usual tropes are applied- the end credits run at the beginning, the camera dizzyingly follows behind dancers as they freak out and the camera often tilts upsides down- but these devices work spectacularly well in this case- they really dramatize the vertiginous, scary, surreal elements of a bad trip.

As the music pulses, everyone starts acting on their worst impulses and things get violent and crazy really quick. The reviews out of Cannes seemed to groove on the first half of the movie- especially the dance, but were bummed out by the nihilistic ending. But I totally disagree- it’s all part of the same thing, and makes for one of the most daring and fabulously fucked-up filmmaking I’ve seen in years.