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Film: Enter The Void
Year of production: 2009
UK Release date: 25th April 2011
Studio: E1
Certificate: 18
Running time: 160 mins
Director: Gaspar Noe
Starring: Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Cyril Roy, Olly Alexander, Masato Tanno
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: France/Italy/Germany
Language: English/Japanese
Review by: Rob Markham
Gaspar Noé is not known for subtlety and he is certainly one of the most fearless filmmakers working today. Considering the scale and scope of the beauty, ugliness, shocking violence, and mesmerising camerawork seen in both his feature and short films so far, it begs the question, where else will this director dare to go?
In his Tokyo apartment, Oscar gets high and hallucinates before receiving a phone call from Victor, who asks him to deliver drugs to a bar called The Void. Along with his friend, Alex, Oscar delivers the drugs only to find he has been set up and the police raid the bar. Oscar is shot and killed in the bathroom.
Oscar’s spirit rises from his body and embarks on a journey that sees him visit his past where he relives tragedy, the present and the circumstances that led to his death, and visits his friends and family as they cope with loss and the aftermath of the shooting.
We follow Oscar’s journey and experience with him love, loss, betrayal, birth and death, until he ends up back at the very beginning…
Noé himself has described Enter The Void as a psychedelic melodrama, which is apt, yet this is a film that really does transcend whatever expectations an audience might have based on that description. Noé has created a dense piece that combines his own style with that of others, most notably Kubrick.
Noé leaves us in no doubt that we are truly an inhabitant in the body of Oscar. We follow the living Oscar through his eyes to such an extent that we are even subjected to his blinking. It is a strange experience at first, but the commitment to this particular style is so bold that we soon find ourselves caught up in Oscar’s mind. His hallucinations, while on drugs, are beautifully realised and as close to hypnotic as you are likely to find on film.
It is through this style that Noé is able to convincingly tell us the story of Oscar’s disembodied spirit. For those familiar with Noé’s films, the camerawork used once Oscar is dead and floating over Tokyo will be instantly recognisable. Whilst in Irreversible, and to some degree in Noé’s short film We F**k Alone, the camera was used to disorient the viewer, here it serves a very different purpose. We become the spirit of Oscar and the camera demonstrates the freedom of the spirit, whilst at the same time being almost painfully restrained to the neon cityscape and bound to his sister, Linda.
It is a bold move, and one that could easily turn an audience off, but the calm pace and leisurely pans and swoops make for a rich viewing experience when juxtaposed with the events being witnessed.
These events are, in true Gaspar Noé style, unflinching and daring. There will be lots of talk surrounding such scenes as an ejaculation seen from inside a vagina and a close up of an aborted foetus, but to focus on the ugliness of such crude images would be to forget their place in the overall picture. As a whole, the film shows us life, and the horrors faced by those living in the aftermath of a loss. Such images as the two siblings promising to never leave each other while sitting in an idyllic field contrast with the ugliness, just as the Linda’s intense grief contrasts with the nonplussed expression of her boyfriend. Focusing on a group of foreigners in Tokyo serves to highlight a sense of alienation, but also adds to our involvement, feeling like outsiders ourselves as we swoop over rooftops and barrel along alleyways.
The star of this particular show is Tokyo itself. It’s not a Tokyo that is recognisable, painted as it is in garish neon. Noé decides not to show us the usual markers of busy high streets, prosperous businesses and mirror-like skyscrapers, opting instead for grimy alleys, cramped apartments and strip joints. When we do see a stereotypical Japanese businessman, he is lying on a stage while strippers pamper him. This is not a Tokyo that has been seen anywhere else in cinema, and our submersion in it is wholly dependent on the mise-en-scène working in partnership with the directing style. To Noé’s credit, it works.
The film is let down slightly by the performances. With the exception of Paz de la Huerta, the acting never really convinces throughout. The film is also too long. While this is a symptom of the first-person style, once the constraints of being alive are removed, the pace could have picked up a times. The lack of identifiable or likeable characters also works to its detriment.
These complaints aside, this is a film so rich in imagery, themes, morals (albeit none too subtle) and ideas, that watching it once is not going to be enough. There are too few filmmakers brave enough to attempt projects as ambitious as this. There may be accusations of Noé’s self-indulgence getting in the way of telling a concise story, but as an auteur, he should be praised for pushing the boundaries and testing both what he is able and what he is allowed to do.
Enter The Void has rightly received mixed reviews from critics all over the world. It is a film that will not appeal to everyone, and will probably be loved and loathed in equal measure, though to deny the ingenuity of the director would be a mistake. It is the kind of film that will most likely be viewed again in a few decades time and held up as a masterpiece of cinematic bravado.
The going may be hard, but Enter The Void should be seen by all those who love cinema, if only for the sheer outrageousness of Noé’s ambition and vision. It is, by turns, rich, daring, beautiful and horrific. It is films such as this that are the reason world cinema is so exciting. You may not like this film, but you won’t forget it. RM
Film: Enter The Void
Year of production: 2009
UK Release date: 25th April 2011
Distributor: Trinity/eOne
Certificate: 18
Running time: 142 mins
Director: Gaspar Noé
Starring: Natheniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Cyril Roy, Masato Tanno, Olly Alexander
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Format: DVD
Country of Production: France/Germany/Italy/Canada
Language: English/Japanese
After the visceral brutality and sexual violence of Irreversible, Gaspar Noe has carved a niche for himself as a maverick with a singular artistic vision – and as a filmmaker who is utterly unafraid of controversy. Enter The Void is no exception, charting drug-use, death and explicit sex in a lurid explosion of neon, banging beats and nausea-inducing camera work.
Telling the tale of unwitting Tokyo drug dealer Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), Noe places the audience smack in the middle of the action. Making a delivery, Oscar is killed within minutes of the opening. His soul hovers momentarily over his corpse, as it takes in the ensuing carnage, and then moves away from reality and into the metaphysical world as it explores Oscar’s life, travelling the space and time on the journey which has ultimately ended in his untimely demise – and will conclude with his inevitable reawakening…
Blasting onto the screen, the movie opens with a dazzling title sequence. It’s a hyperkinetic surge of colourful graphics and throbbing techno which burns the cast and crew’s names onto the audience’s retinas. From the outset it’s clear that Noe’s intent is to make a striking impact – and he certainly does.
Rather than continuing in this garish and cartoonish vein, however, the opening scene moves away from vibrancy and colour into a muted colour palate and a more sedate pace. Placing the audience squarely in the scene, Noe utilises a first-person perspective as the world is seen through Oscar’s eyes. He makes small talk with his sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta), smokes drugs and talks Buddhism with a friend. It’s dreamy, hazy and, at times, uncomfortable viewing – the swirling, see-sawing motion of the camera induces a motion sickness which is an entirely deliberate ploy to draw the audience quickly into Oscar’s stoned state of mind.
But just as quickly as you become accustomed to Oscar’s worldview, his perspective is transformed: he’s shot dead by police. As his soul leaves his body, it is transported above the action, and from here it takes on a new life, as it swoops and soars above the city. Brilliant camera work – particularly airborne tracking shots above Tokyo - and some fantastic editing allow Oscar’s soul o glide through the city and streets, and pass through walls and ceilings as he observes his stripper sister having sex with her lover, his own corpse being moved by police and his friend Alex (Cyril Roy) distraught at what has happened. It’s thrillingly voyeuristic stuff.
Sadly what follows this dreamy, exhilarating opening is not nearly as creative or as interesting. Instead we revisit Oscar's life via a montage of interlinked flashback sequences. Like the rest of Enter The Void, they are slightly surreal, but their style is much more prosaic and predictable. Despite that, Noe still manages to create some arresting visual images and some interesting thematic ideas. But above all else, what shines through is some sloppy symbolism and some shoddy acting.
Initially the flashback sequences looks at Oscar's relationship with his sister. Mixing and merging scenes of their childhood and adolescence with scenes of their adult lives introduces, it creates the idea of a creepily incestuous relationship. Some overwrought and clumsy scenes of the siblings kissing, bathing and swimming with their mother are cut with images of Linda breastfeeding. The characters (and their ages) become interchangeable and it's, quite frankly, absurd.
Given his ubiquitous presence throughout this sequence, it's sad to find that Nathaniel Brown as Oscar is simply not an actor cut out to carry a film. He's wooden, to say the least, and his slacker accent and low key voice are almost lost in the aural wall which Noe builds around his action. Most of the performances are mannered to say the least. Paz de la Huerta pitches Linda somewhere between childhood naivety and permanently high in a performance which grates slightly. Arguably the best of the bunch is Cyril Roy as Oscar’s artist friend Alex - he at least sounds a note of realism.
With such inconsequential and irritating characters, the narrative also needs to be stronger to carry the film. The recurring motif of The Tibetan Book of the Dead hints clunkily and clumsily at exactly where the plot is going. There was simply no need to paint-by-numbers for an audience who would have been well capable of discerning the plot’s deeper meanings without signposting them so obviously.
It’s left to a series of set pieces to provide what remains of interest as the storyline becomes increasingly uninteresting and domesticated in the aftermath of Oscar’s death. These set-pieces invariably centre on female nudity – and some of them are more original than others. A graphically seedy orgy certainly pales into insignificance compared to a horrific scene in a hospital operating theatre and the never-before-seen vaginal penetration shot which features in one scene. Whether this intimate camera work constitutes good cinema or not is highly debatable. But it’s certainly original – and provides a fitting climax.
Enter The Void is beautifully, skilfully and inventively crafted. But it is a triumph of style over substance. All the clever camerawork and amazing editing in the world cannot save the film from its plodding plot, overwrought symbolism and unconvincing acting. There’s a good movie in here somewhere, but Gasper Noe hasn’t made it yet. RW
Film: Enter The Void
Year of production: 2009
UK Release date: 25th April 2011
Studio: E1
Certificate: 18
Running time: 160 mins
Director: Gaspar Noe
Starring: Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Cyril Roy, Olly Alexander, Masato Tanno
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: France/Italy/Germany
Language: English/Japanese
After the controversy which surrounded Gaspar Noe’s second feature film, Irreversible, it is fair to say that anticipation has been high for the French/Argentine auteur’s latest offering, Enter The Void. Billed by Noe as a “psychedelic melodrama,” and with critical comparisons to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, there’s been an eager sense of excitement for the film’s release.
On his way to deliver a package of drugs to a friend, protagonist Oscar is shot by the Tokyo police in a nightclub toilet and dies. His soul leaves his body and flies above the city, unfettered by the restraints of physics.
We see him travel back through his life, following his childhood and the relationships he had with his parents and sister, and see the chain of events unfold which have led to his demise.
We finally see Oscar conclude his journey through death into the inevitable next step…
From the very start, we know that we are in for something out of the ordinary. Gaspar Noe is not a man for who the title sequence of a film is a formality to be dispensed dispassionately before the action starts. Those familiar with his work will be used to Noe’s bizarre title sequences, and here a mind-battering assault of strobing neon images burst from the screen to a techno-soundtrack. It is an unsettling, disorientating experience, and the message is clear: Noe wants your attention and what is about to follow is something to be taken very seriously.
And indeed it is. Not to mince words: the opening act of Enter The Void is truly astonishing, and nothing short of a landmark achievement for film. The visual sequences of drug taking, of Oscar’s walk through the city, and of his traumatic death and subsequent ‘rebirth’ are astounding, genuinely original, and utterly immersive. If you want to know what it is like to die, this is the closest you will get without actually going through with it. It is an extraordinary, disturbing and magical experience, which achieves what all great art aspires to: it alters our perception and changes the way we look at the world.
How horribly disappointing therefore that what follows spectacularly fails to measure up. An hour in, Enter The Void seems to dramatically loose it’s steam. The idea of a soul set free of its earthly limitations becomes simply a tool to tell a not-very-interesting back story through banal flashbacks. This mystifying change of pace renders the opening act largely insignificant. After all, why bother to set up this extraordinary premise if you’re then going to abandon it and start plodding through a largely irrelevant melodrama? There are plenty of oedipal subtexts thrown in about breastfeeding, hints at incest, and tunnel images to signify rebirth and reincarnation, but after the ingenuity of the first act, it all feels so depressingly mundane. You begin to wonder what happened to the fearless visionary Noe from an hour before.
The film is lacking in other areas as well. While Irreversible and I Stand Alone were anchored by astonishing performances by Vincent Cassel/Monica Bellucci and Philippe Nahon respectively, the acting in Enter the Void is sadly not up to par. The clunky dialogue is delivered lazily and insincerely, and several characters – particularly Ed Spear as the unpleasant drug dealer Bruno - feel lamentably underused. Others, such as Oscar’s duplicitous friend, are simply just not believable, either as characters in themselves or as part of the story. Matters aren’t improved by the fact that Oscar’s stoned voiceover sounds worryingly reminiscent of Napolean Dynamite.
As the film draws to a close, things go from bad to worse. Anyone who caught Eva, Noe’s recent series of short films for the Grand Journal de Canal, will know that he has an unfortunate tendency to slip over the line from experimental to self-indulgent and pretentious. Sadly, this is given full reign in Enter The Void’s third act. From an explicit orgy in a neon sex hotel, to Noe’s own (patent pending) vagina-cam, showing us an as yet unseen viewpoint of the sexual act, the whole thing descends into a lavish, extravagant mess. Even a neon orgy scene was boring.
From the evidence of the extraordinary first act, coupled with his body of previous works, it’s clear that Gaspar Noe is a rare visionary, an absolute believer in his art, and a peerless exploiter of the visual and auditory possibilities of cinema. It is unfortunate therefore that what should have been one of the great films of our era has instead suffered from the ego of its creator, and has emerged as sprawling and self-indulgent. Certainly see it, because there are things here you’ve never seen before, but you’ll almost certainly come out downhearted knowing that Enter The Void could have been so much better. LB
