Enter the Void

Released:  September 24^th, 2010

Rated:  Not Rated

Distributor:  IFC Films

Starring:  Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Cyril Roy, Olly Alexander

Directed by:  Gaspar Noé

Written by:  Gaspar Noé

Personal Bias Alert:  likes being challenged, wasn’t impressed by Noé’s Irreversible

3.5 of 10

            Gaspar Noé is a man that fearlessly makes films, although he probably doesn’t consider it a fearless act.  He probably wonders why the rest of us are too meek to make these kinds of pieces, so restrained by our quaint ideas of propriety and respect.  This openness makes him a fascinating filmmaker, but also one that’s a bit baffling.  Can you imagine creating something as aggressively nasty as Enter the Void or Irreversible and then sitting in a packed theater while others watch it?  Or worse, walking out onstage afterwards as everyone is nervously fidgeting, trying to reorient themselves to the regular world?  I’ve never seen Noé in real life, but I imagine him striding onto such a stage with an unassuming casualness.  He doesn’t expect to have to defend his films; they’re far too meaningless to be worth a defense.

            In the few interviews I have seen of him, he seems most enthusiastic about discussing his filming techniques, which is the one thing he undoubtedly puts a lot of effort into.  Not that his style is any less repulsive than his content; he also pushes the boundary of making people physically uncomfortable, forcing the audience to sit through strobing lights and swirling frames, emphasized in Enter the Void by the main character’s heavy drug use.  In an attempt to capture the effects of such highs, the setting disintegrates into fluid streams of glowing structures, heavily patterned, and seemingly endless in repetition.  The entire film is shot in a quite literal first person point of view, seeing the events as the main character would and catching glimpses of him only in mirrors and remembered flashbacks.  To make things even more dizzying, he dies towards the beginning of the film (not a spoiler) and spends most of the runtime floating in the void of death, watching events unfold below him.  The hovering effect and the blocking of the overhead angles are thrilling if only for their uniqueness, and Noé is attentive enough to fill the frame with a brimming, oversaturated version of Tokyo.  The visuals in Enter the Void are beyond reproach, both for their technical and imaginative aspects, and make this film a worthwhile study for anyone looking to explore how a camera can move.

            Unfortunately, Noé fails to bring anywhere near the same level of attention or precision to his story.  It’s a loose piece that lacks any real sense of pace or arc, drifting (quite literally) between events that are often so simple that it’s hard to come up with a more descriptive term.  Simply put, the film’s boring, even when dramatic events like the main character’s death and possible afterlife are occurring.  The fact that it’s never explicitly clear what is happening – whether we’re seeing the character’s literal afterlife or the dying fizzles of his brain – isn’t even enough to keep things interesting.

            The problem stems from Noé’s unrelenting tone, a mix of the-world-means-nothing absurdism with a pessimist’s unrelenting nightmares.  It’s clear that nothing good will happen in Enter the Void, and the viewer’s mind will sense that and throw up every natural defense it has.  The actors, largely inexperienced, prove inadequate at drawing us back in, and Noé’s unoriginal shock tactics become almost laughable.  Someone unaccustomed to the more extreme movements in European cinema may find the graphic scenes either off-putting or revelatory, but the shock will do little to uncover any deeper meaning.  There’s simply nothing behind this 2+ hour slog except some fancy camerawork, but perhaps that emptiness is Noé’s preferred parting shot to his audience.

Other Notes:

Ø  Indulgent is the best word to describe it.  Or over-indulgent.  Yeah, that’s a better one.

Ø  That was one of the least subtle linkings of sex and death that I’ve seen in a while.

Ø  I saw the ending coming, and I was wishing it wouldn’t make me see it.  But yep, of course it made me see it.