Director: Gaspar Noé (Irréversible)
Screenplay: Gaspar Noé
Producers: Brahim Chioua, Vincent Maraval, Olivier Delbosc, Marc Missonnier
Starring: Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Cyril Roy
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running time: 154 min.
(2/5)It is very rare that you get the opportunity to see a film unlike any film you have ever seen before. Movies, no matter how good, will almost inevitably follow the same pattern, or feature the same stylistic choices, of at least a dozen movies that came before it; only in the rarest cases do we witness something that is either narratively or technically unique. Enter the Void is one of those rare cases. Shot entirely from the perspective of its main character, the film, with its ethereal floating camera-work and its constantly flashing neon glow, is a hallucinogenic tableau meant to depict both a psychedelic drug-trip and the unknowable journey of death and the afterlife. In this regard, French director Gaspar Noé has created a film that is unprecedented, at least as far as I can tell. Yet despite its mechanical distinctions, as a narrative the film is meandering and seemingly meaningless, and offers no real insight or commentary on the experiences it attempts to recreate.
Despite coming to the conclusion that I did not like this film, I am honestly not yet sure if this review is going to be positive or negative. On the one hand, the technical aspects of the film, at least before their novelty wears out, are fascinating; on the other hand, when they do, what remains is a largely unexciting drama about absolutely nothing. The plot, in-so-far as there is one, follows a young American drug-dealer named Oskar (Nathaniel Brown) who lives in Tokyo with his go-go dancing sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta). After a botched deal ends with Oskar being shot dead by police in a nightclub bathroom, his spirit leaves his body and floats over the city, observing how his friends and family cope with his death, as well as remembering the events of his life, most primarily the death of his parents and his bizarre relationship with his sister.
For the first hour or so, the film is captivating not because of its story but because of the way it is told. Noé’s camera-work is audacious; takes go on and on without cutting, as Oskar first walks and then soars over the streets of Tokyo, elaborate crane and helicopter shots blending with creative visual effects. But as the film continues, the constant spinning of the camera begins to irritate; likewise, the first-person perspective (not Cloverfield style, but literally set behind the protagonists eyes, complete with “blinking”) soon seems like little more than a gimmick. Lastly, the increasing regularity of the 2001: A Space Odyssey inspired tunnel of light sequences border dangerously on pretentious.
The film is also seriously lacking in anything resembling profundity. While obviously it deals explicitly with life and death, it seems more concerned with a depiction of the afterlife rather than any real explanation of what it all means. The characters just happen to discuss the Tibetan Book of the Dead mere moments before Oskar is killed, offering some very convenient context as to what is happening in the two and a half hours of movie that follow. Yet there is never any reason given as to why it happens. The films emotional core is also absent because of de la Heurta’s feeble performance as the bereaving Linda; while I suppose she should be commended for tackling a difficult role that involves her in several highly compromising positions, as an actress she is just plain unconvincing.
Noé previous film Irréversible contained one of the most graphic and disturbing rape sequences ever put to celluloid: this is a director who likes to try and unsettle his audience, and Enter the Void is no exception. Aside from the copious levels of drug related content, the film features several scenes so sexually graphic that one seriously wonders how the actors managed to simulate them. Yet despite the pornographic depiction of sex, the ghostlike quality of the cinematography leaves one feeling detached from the action, and the only time I was actually viscerally affected by Void was during the portrayal of a medical procedure, one so unpleasant that no amount of distance could leave you feeling unperturbed. The rest of the time, the offensive content is at its best undistracing, and at its worst so silly that it reminds one of an infamous shot from the beginning of Antichrist, itself another piece of willfully controversial cinema from a misguided European provocateur.
And beyond the creative camera-work, dazzling lighting and multiple attempts to stir controversy, Enter the Void is as empty as its name suggests. Thematically, narratively and at a certain point technically, the film is a failure. Yet I still cannot bring myself to condemn it entirely. Even now, the phenomenal opening credit sequence (the best part of the film in point of fact) continues to flash in front of my eyes, reminding me of the boundaries the Noé attempts to break, pushing the medium into places it has never been before. Enter the Void is a cinematic achievement. It’s just not one you should bother watching.
To look upon ENTER THE VOID and deem it a thematic or technical failure is to mark yourself blind. Not liking it is one thing, but those words are folly.
Tom, guessing you saw it at Cinema Nova, what was the crowd like? Anyway I’m with you on this film, which I saw the MIFF, the use of car-crashes, a happy-ending in an un-ironic way, the unbelievable fact he continued the film after showing the scale-model he used i’m sure to shoot most of it, Gaspar Noe is a prankster film maker, a Kubrick wanna-be-, all he every be is the poor man’s Lars von Trier.
Always good to see his films at a fest, though anybody who saw it at a fest and liked it, see it twice before proclaiming it one of the best films of the new century, it doesn’t hold up like say There Will Be Blood. I can’t say which Noe film I’d rather watch, cause they’re all so bloody similar, films for people with short-attention spans (I can defend that, cause he is always servicing his audience like a bitch).
I’ll go into this film with trepidation. Kurt proclaims it best of year (as do many others) while many call it complete crappy wankery. Considering how I feel about Irreversible (I haven’t seen any of Noe’s other films), I’m dubious of this one – but I really want to like it!
“Yet despite its mechanical distinctions, as a narrative the film is meandering and seemingly meaningless, and offers no real insight or commentary on the experiences it attempts to recreate.”
You see, this is a film where the experience of it trumps the brains of it. It’s a pure visceral trip. There are not great truths to be gleaned, no higher insights, it is a pure experiential ride. It’s the drugs that Ralph Feinnes is hawking in Strange Days, and it is magnificent. As always, I fully recommend seeing this in the biggest screen possible. I’ll be there will bells on when it is playing in Toronto in early January!
I hope either of the Matt’s or Kurt comes to a realization on the film come Dec 30/Jan.
Its the ultimate one-watch film, could see someone admitting there wrong about I swear. I was wrong about the head-trip that is The Fountain, but that film has good acting, a beautiful score and is 90mins.
As a cinematic-joke, Enter the Void, is a 150min flat-liner, and I don’t care if it’s projected at 25 frames per second, would anyone care if say Stuck on You the Farrell Bros film was, NO.
Actually I like the film Destriced which includes a wack Noe short (though not the craziest nor the most Noe-esce, HA!), need to see that other vignette film he participated in, ’9′.
I will certainly report back after a second viewing, but man, the first viewing will always be treasured by me.
I think I sit somewhere between Tom and Kurt on what I think about Enter the Void, and even then I am still unsure of what I think. I definitely appreciate seeing the film and the visceral experience. There were some movements I didn’t care much for, but the opening of the film REALLY grabbed my attention.
As the opening of The Happening might grab ya.
Gaspar Noe understands the concept of irony, but not of subtlety or satire, hence his films r jokes, but not smart jokes.
I totally agree with what Darcy is saying, and I especially appreciate the comparison to The Fountain. That is a film that combines the best bits of Enter the Void, the “visceral trip” as you put it Kurt, with a far more interesting and creative story, not to mention terrific acting and a great score.
While I can’t deny how interested I initially was by the technical elements of Enter the Void, they felt awfully repeditive after a while. To Matt’s point, that is why I consider it a technical failure: at a certain point, the technique, inovative as it is, fails to be entertaining or engaging. In my opinion at least.
And yes Darcy I did see it at the Nova – I would describe my audiences reaction as “confused”, mostly because after twenty minutes there was an audio glitch and the sound jumped about ninety seconds in front of the picture. It actually took me ten minutes before I was sure something was wrong (I thought it might be a stylistic choice). In the end I walked out and saw it again the next day (in a nearly empty theatre).
Should say that I did’nt like The Fountain on first watch, really like it now after 2nd/3rd views, seeing it for first time on big screen Mar 8th (at Astor, DBill with Black Swan)
Tell me you only paid for the film once, that sounds like the biggest cock-up ever at Nova (pun-intended) they’re usually on the ball.
Oh sweet! I might have to check that double feature out! And yes, I got a full refund
One of my favourite films of the year. Simply stunning.
Excerpt rom Slate’s Annual email exchange between a few movie critics, on ENTER THE VOID:
“…Enter the Void reminds me of birthday cake.
Let’s back up, and please bear with me: Adam Gopnik wrote a story in last week’s New Yorker about “the history, and the future, of desserts.” This ultimately involved going to Spain, where he learned about hot ice cream and ate an unfathomably complicated course designed to “re-create the emotions [great Barcelona soccer player] Lionel Messi feels when he scores a goal,” but first, he went downtown and talked to Alex Stupak, the pastry chef at WD-50. Stupak gave this great spiel on why what he does is “the closest thing a human being can get to creating a new food.”
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All cooking has an alchemy to it, but between a savory entree and a dessert, there’s generally a difference in what happens to the ingredients. When you eat, say, coq au vin, the elements are transparent: You can taste the chicken and the wine. Not so when it comes to the flour, eggs, food coloring, etc., in cake. “Pastry is infinitely exciting, because it’s less about showing the greatness of nature, and more about transmitting taste and flavor,” Stupak tells Gopnik. “Desserts are naturally denatured food. Birthday cake is the most denatured thing on earth.”
Here’s where I’m going with this: Birthday cake is a concept that virtually any American understands—loaded with sense memory and nostalgia—but I daresay very few of us, when eating birthday cake, can identify the ingredients and trace them back to their natural state. So many processes of transformation have occurred between the natural existence of sugar cane and its manifestation as bright blue icing coating a fork, and the distance between the two is actually part of the appeal.
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I get off on birthday-cake cinema, and Enter the Void was the ultimate 2010 example of that: Shot after shot frustrates any attempt to analyze exactly how the images were constructed, and that abstraction makes the themes—as stoopid as they are—all the more impactful. In terms of totally baffling sensory experiences that approximate the movie version of “the closest thing a human being can get to creating a new food,” I’d also point to certain sequences of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, much of Tron, the one-man Rambo stunt Flooding With Love For the Kid, Brent Green’s live-action-stop-motion oddity Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then, Film Socialisme, and, of course, Trash Humpers. ”
http://www.slate.com/id/2279738/entry/2280322/