It was a big day today for fans of Irreversible director Gaspar Noe. Why? Because after keeping the wraps tightly on his latest project, Enter The Void, for as long as he could Noe arrived at te European Film Market today to personally introduce an eight minute promo reel of footage from the picture. The screening came with a number of caveats - unfinished color correction, unfinished sound design, temporary effects, etc - and while I can certainly understand why Noe would want to declare those thing up front there was really no need. This thing looks absolutely stunning as it is. Considering that very little has been said about the film publicly so far I'll refrain from commenting on plot points and keep myself to just this. First, Noe will show you Tokyo as you've never seen it before. Second, while this is very clearly the work of the same man who made Irreversible and no less difficult and troubling it seems as though much of the anger of that film has been stripped away and replaced with a sort of sad, wistful nostalgia - instead of railing at life gone wrong as he did previously, Noe seems here to be moving to a sort of quiet acceptance and resignation. This is truly potent, stunningly visual stuff from one of the world's most talented and unique directors. Here's how he describes it:
The visions described in the script are inspired partly by the accounts of people who have had near-death experiences, who describe a tunnel of light, seeing their lives flashing past them and ‘astral’ visions, and partly by similar hallucinatory experiences obtained by consuming DMT, the molecule which the brain sometimes secretes at the moment of death and which, in small doses, enables us to dream at night.The film should sometimes scare the audience, make it cry and, as much as possible, hypnotise it.
I'm dreading yet salivating the thought of seeing how he has evolved since Irreversible.
Tokyo as we have never seen it before? I'm quite curious.
Great to see Noe back on the map. This will be mandatory viewing. things are shaping up rather nicely for 09 w/ a double shot of Refn and new films from Noe and Joko Anwar.
Tokyo as we've never seen it before. On the back of a fire extinguisher perhaps.
Awesome title, great premise and photography from the looks of it. I'm counting down the days as soon as a release date is given.
tokyo as you never have seen it ? meaning not the "real" tokyo oc. and is using an prominent asian location not a little cheap to induce "alieness" or "strangeness" into our european/american hearts ? cautious. Tarsem Sings movies look stunning, too, but they amount to nothing than "I'm waving my dick in the wind" (copyright - Ween)