[Our thanks to Katarina Gligorijevic for the following review of the latest from Gaspar Noe.]
Gaspar Noé won the Palme D'Or of my heart with this 160+ minute mind-bender. Enter the Void is more of an experimental, avant-garde journey through a DayGlo heart of darkness than it is a traditional narrative. After the punishing violence of both Seul Contre Tous and Irréversible, Noé switches gears completely and attempts to intimately capture the internal, hallucinatory experience of a young man's death.
After years of living apart in foster homes, American brother and sister Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) and Linda (Paz De La Huerta) are reunited in Tokyo, where he's a low level drug dealer and she a budding stripper. The film starts out literally inside Oscar's head, registering each blink of his eyes as a momentary black screen, and showing us first hand the DMT trip he's on, which Noé depicts as a series of unfolding, expanding brilliantly-coloured spirals, fractals and delicate tendrils (a bit reminiscent of a constantly mutating science class diagram of the parts of a cell).
Soon enough, a drug deal goes terribly awry and Oscar finds himself dead on the grimy floor of a nightclub bathroom. The fact of his death doesn't change the film's point of view, it merely shifts the camera's position - rather than viewing the world from inside Oscar's head, we now have two new perspectives. When Oscar remembers Linda, their childhood and the horrific accident that claimed their parents' lives, the memories unfold with the camera hovering behind Oscar, imbuing the scenes with a voyeuristic quality, as we're forced to peek over his shoulder in order to see what's happening. Meanwhile, newly-dead Oscar floats above the action, hovering and tumbling above and around characters and buildings, giving a disorienting birds-eye view of neon-soaked Tokyo by night.
Tracking backward and forward in time and seamlessly moving in and out of narrative and visual experimentation as Oscar slowly comes to terms with his situation, Enter the Void uses rhythmic shooting techniques, strobing visuals, complex soundscapes and ambitious CGI to create a truly hypnotic atmosphere. Psychedelic drug trips, explicit sex, intense violence (and even a graphic abortion sequence) are intertwined with abstract montages of colour and light. Fans of Noé's stark brutality might be disappointed by Enter the Void's decidedly contemplative nature, but he's undeniably taking creative risks here that are as extreme as any he's taken before.
The film is an astonishingly original exploration of life, death and sexuality, and Noé is the Siren of Greek mythology, seductively mooring the viewer on the rocks of his bizarre vision, from which there is no escape. Love it or hate it, Enter the Void was the wildest, headiest trip in Cannes.
Review by Katarina Gligorijevic
Related Links
More from Enter the Void
- Reviews: (Not So) Boozie Movies At Danger After Dark! ENTER THE VOID Review
- News: Strip-Tease(r) from Gaspar Noe's Party: ENTER THE VOID
- News: It's the NSFW Japanese trailer for Gasper Noe's 'Enter the Void'!
- Reviews: Sundance 2010: ENTER THE VOID Review
- News: Gaspar Noé to make "Joyful Porn" film in Glorious 3D
- News: Enter The Void is Coming to America
- Reviews: Sitges 09: ENTER THE VOID Review
But 160+ minutes?
Good grief, that's very long for a hallucinatory experiment. I'm still intrigued though.
Gaspar Noe is another one of those talentless hacks using shock tactics because they basically have nothing to say. come on already, how hard is it to shock and offend?
I am looking forward to this. I heard what was shown at Cannes was the first full cut with no color correction, etc., and the film will undergo further editing. I wish this so-called "talentless hack" a long and fruitful career.
i wouldn't go so far as to call him a hack, but i can understand why you might think he is. i personally don't care much for his work, but it is intriguing. although im more interested in knowing what Jan Kounen will think of this, since he is very much interested in this kinda cinema (hallucinatory).
oh and if for ONE SECOND you believe that a film maker will allow for his/her film to go out incomplete your INSANE. a missing trim here and there sure, but a first cut, with no correction etc etc...NEVER. its a fucking lie each and everytime so that people go easier on them, especially a film like this which is a massively visual experience...don't buy into the bullshit. assume that its 98% ready otherwise why would they spend a small fortune mastering it up for an audience to see??
I've only seen Irreversible and that fucked me up good so I look forward to see this.
Can't wait to see this. Noé is dangerous and bold - that is why I like him. Irreversible is a film that I cannot shake. Hack he is not Visitor.
I am loving this concept, but I doubt I'll love the film.
Damn, I've beeing reading everything I can and this sounds like conceputally brillant! I love the idea of following a story in the first perspective from life and into death and allowing the plot to continue still as we watch as the ghost. WOW! And the few images I've seen of Noe's vision of Tokyo are simply astonishing....
I think it's important that art looks at the darker side of life, but it sounds like Noe spends most of the film wallowing in shit (figureatively, and literally).
I mean, come on. The character synopsis alone.... Brother and sister witness parents brutally killed in car accident. Sister becomes stripper, brother becomes drug dealer/junkie who's fucking his best friends' mom. There's a graphic abortion thrown in and... IT'S ALL TOO MUCH.
It almost reads like a parody of nihilistic french cinema. Hmmm,I bet the brother actually has a desire to fuck his sister at some point, maybe she has his abortion. I'm betting the brother rapes a woman after getting them high, maybe his sister and she has her brother's abortion...
I think Noe is a terrific craftsman. He knows how to make a visually impressive film..... But I can agree with Visitor to a degree. I don't know if I'd call Noe a Hack. In fact, the very difinition of a hack is someone who's sold out. Noe's not commericaly viable enough to be a hack.
But I will say this, complete and utter mysonthropy is EASY! It doesn't take brilliance or courage to simply show everything as shit.
I remember seeing Irreversible 3 times in the theater just so I could see the audience's reaction to it. I was an angry college student and I thought Noe was "BOLD and DARING" for taking people out of their comfort zone. I thought it was amazing that an artist would put so much effort in a piece of work that was certain to repulse 90% of everyone. At least half the audience walked out on all three screenings.
Now I've grown up and I think it was an utterly pointless experience. Well made and a terrific conversation starter. But the fact that the film is almost never discussed without first and foremost mentioning the 9 and a half minute static rape scene proves that it's a cheap gimmick.
So what did it actually make you feel? What did it have to say other than everything and everyone is shit? Was watching that explicitly brutal rape scene beneficial in any way? Did it change the way you view and treat women?
Doubtful.
No, certain film geeks just get off on talking about how "fucked up it was." I was one of em, merel reveling in the film's brutal excess as a badge of honor, something that will seperates us from them, the multiplex attending masses.
Pffft. Big deal...
"Gaspar Noe is another one of those talentless hacks using shock tactics because they basically have nothing to say. come on already, how hard is it to shock and offend?"
You're thinking of Eli Roth and Alexander Aja. I'm not going to say Noe is an "author" or something like that, but Irreversible is, in all it's shock and what not, far more ambitious and clever than most "torture porn" and other assorted junk out there.
What separates Irreversible from dreck like the Hostel films is how dispassionately Noe stages his violence. He seems to want to portray events as honestly as possible rather than to emphasize the acts themselves. While his ideas are elusive, Irreversible offers far more possibilities than the any standard genre offering.
well, perhaps "hack" isn't the right word to describe Noe. he definitely can shoot nice visuals. but as a storyteller, i still think he's talentless.
like i said, how hard can it be to shock and offend?
yes, Irreversible is meant to turn our emotions on their heads by going backwards and showing us the reason for the violent act of revenge. violence begets violence, etc etc blah blah blah, and all that. but a protracted and graphic rape scene? do we need to see a rape in graphic detail to feel repulsion towards the act? is reading or watching a news report not enough to compel us to vehemently denounce such an act? what is Noe implying about YOU as a human being? as such, i think it's actually insulting and degrading to us the audience that Noe thinks we need to be pummeled into submission with such images because we simply cannot FEEL.
something like Rendition, which actually uses almost the same device, albeit without shock and horror, to get us to reverse our emotions towards the characters involved, is far more effective and poignant and meaningful.
"do we need to see a rape in graphic detail to feel repulsion towards the act?"
sure we do. honestly, a three minute rape scene would not have been early as effective. with every second that scene continued my disgust, and my sympathy grew.
"is reading or watching a news report not enough to compel us to vehemently denounce such an act?"
I see that kind of stuff on the news everyday. I brush it off and go about my business.
Im not trying to argue with you for the sake of argument, and I also sort of agree that it can be easy to shock and offend. BUT what I am saying is that sometimes it is a very good thing to be shocked and offended, especially by things we had thought we were desensitized to.
I totally forget what I had written.
Must of been super dick breed of me.
I usually take things with a grain of salt but IndieMaker0583 totally set me off, ha.
My bad, wouldn't want to get banned from one of my favorite sites.
And Todd, it wasn't out of character, I was just pissed.
I'm like Tim from SPACED when it comes to Phantom Menace...
But as a completely over sensitive analogy to G. Noe and a horrible, horrible,
and way too long bashing of his artistic creativity. I snapped.
I will try not to let it happen again. Cheers.
It was a pretty good one, ForgottenFilms! But no worries, on we go ...