Enter the Void

I must choose more wisely ... what to see ... this one was unbearable. The most unbearable in a very very - very long time. "Noé promised the investors to produce an alternative Version should the final movie be longer than 140 minutes. He solved this problem by simply removing the seventh movie reel. During the removed 17 minutes, nothing essential for the movie's story happens, as he said". I must have seen the uncut version. It was 160 minutes long. Two hours 40 unbearable minutes. There were a few good ideas and a floating camera, about enough for a half decent movie, but after the first 10 minutes of us floating aimlessly around, it just keeps going on and on and on and on. As the director says, nothing essential happens during the seventh reel. Nothing essential barely happens at all. Seriously, was it not possible to cut the scenes down AT ALL? We see a graphic accident, I don't mind that at all - shocking and very unpleasant - but after the fifth time, sixth, seventh, I have no idea how many times we saw that same thing, the shock, the screaming, over and over again throughout the movie. Then some more floating and spinning camera. A LOT of spinning and floating cameras, floating over the city, diving into some object, blending lights, over and over ... And the accident again. What kind of storytelling is this? I guess there are some pretentious ideas behind all this, but there is no freaking need to keep on going for ever just because the camera floats so beautifully. I was going to rate it 2 or 3 out of 10 just because of the unusual pictures - never mind the plot - but then halfway through I got so insanely bored by this kind of "storytelling", it was just painful. A few of the actors were pretty wooden as well. I refuse to rate this higher than 2 out of 10. I don't care what all of you say ...

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source: Enter the Void

This is the first review i'm writing here. I am not triggered by the movie, but by all these comments about how stunning it was. I couldn't disagree more with all these thrilled people! First, the story.. Nothing we haven't seen before. A young tormented man dies and watches over his beloved sister. And that really is everything I can say about the story. Then, the visual effects.. I wish someone had told me before that I was supposed to be under influence of drugs in order to really enjoy the movie. Being 100% sober all I got was a headache and those disgusting images stuck in my head! At last, I understand the need of some directors to shock, but here some parts were completely unnecessary. I mean come on! 15 minutes of * is not necessary! We got the point within the first 2 minutes! I hesitated of stopping it, but I kept hoping that the end would make the point for all the torture. I fell asleep a couple of times and then I was sorry I wasted 2,5 hours on this. All in all, too long, too uninteresting, too boring, too pretentious.. I'm trying to think of at least one positive thing to say about this movie but there really isn't any.

Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) and his sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta) live in Tokyo. He's a small time drug dealer. His friend Alex (Cyril Roy) gives him The Tibetan Book of the Dead about the Buddhist belief in the afterlife. Oscar goes to a club called The Void. They are raided by the police. He holds out in the bathroom trying to flush his drugs and is shot through the door. His spirit rises out of his body and witnesses his life. This gets boring after about ten minutes. The bright colors and Japanese location are visually interesting with the first person POV. It is so hypnotic that it almost puts me to sleep. This is strictly experimental and not for the wider audience. I don't know how anybody is expected to sit through the over two hours unless they're actually on something.

I've had gestation periods shorter and more interesting than this movie. These were dull people and exposure to them (and by them!)made them not a whit more engaging. This was like the 60's underground movie (maybe Andy Warhol)which is nothing more than a shot of a guy from the waist up getting an hour long *. The first ten minutes were scintillating, but it lost its charm thereafter. The photography reminded me of several seasons of unedited Twin Peaks shows run together; Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway photography was much crisper. I'm still scratching my head as to the purpose of the abortion scene, and the little sperm hitting that egg; a new low in trite. I just got past the birth scene, and not a minute too soon. From now on, I'M picking the Netflix films.

So I watched this film in Sitges and just got back from the awards show where it received best cinematography (which I understand) and special jury prize (mmmm....). Yeah, the movie is innovative and has really great visuals. I'm into Gaspars movies, but this seemed more like an excuse to try out a new camera than an important story that needed to be told. The story pretty much ends at 20 minutes, after that, it's downhill. I was upset because I think this guy has potential, but this was a hardcore step backwards. I believe that movies exist to tell important stories. Important in the sense that you learn something. I want to walk out of the cinema a different person. But with this film, I walked out a very tired and unchanged person. I don't believe that cool camera-work and trippy images are an excuse to make a movie. The acting was poor and the character definition inexistent. The plot it minuscule and the message superficial. Best part: initial credits were brilliant. And I think the jury was blind to consider this film for a special mention over Dogtooth, which in my opinion is probably one of the best films of the year. All in all, if you want some cool background images for an after party, this film is perfect, but for those people who need a little substance, stay away (or turn off after the first 20 minutes).

In a nutshell, Gaspar Noe's often exasperating but always visionary Enter the Void follows a man on his journey from his last hours on earth, through his death and his journey into the afterlife. The first twenty minutes or so follows Oscar as he takes a hit of DMT (a very potent hallucinogen) and goes on a visually arresting, if slightly over-long trip. He then leaves his house to give his friend a stash of drugs he owes him only to be chased and shot by police when he gets there. From there, his death and afterlife mirrors the philosophies behind the Tibetan Book of the Dead which theorises (I'm sure I'm putting this very crudely) that one's soul floats around, watching the world without them until they figure out how to leave their old life behind and move on. To recommend this film to audiences is perhaps a wrong turn, as it is bound to strike most as indulgent, immoral, needlessly vulgar and uncomfortable (particularly in Oscar's tendency to watch his sister having sex whenever possible). However, with suitably forewarning, this is a film that any self-respecting cinephile should make a point of seeing, and especially on the big screen. Noe proved with Irreversible that he was a technical genius and that his eye for original visuals knows no bounds. He also proved that he wasn't afraid to shock his audience and has quite the nasty streak running through his stories. In both visual content and shock factor, Irreversible was merely a precursor to his magnum opus Enter the Void. With an endless stream of nasty images and depressingly dead-eyed unpleasantness, it is difficult to feel anything for any of the characters, but none of this dampens the impact of Noe's probing, soaring, spectral camera as it floats in and out of lives and deaths. I don't know if it has ever been done before but the camera-as-spirit conceit is highly effective and one which puts a very interesting moral spin on the voyeurism of this film. Noe takes voyeurism to extreme, as Oscar's spirit jumps in and out of bodies in often very unusual and even shocking circumstances. The trouble with Enter the Void is that it is difficult sometimes to know whether to laugh or be shocked. Some of the content is pretty outrageous and even quite silly. However, for every roll of the eyes, there is a gasp of astonishment in terms of the intensity of the cinematic experience. Having now seen this film twice (it premiered at JDIFF 2010 in February), I must say I was pleased to see some superfluous scenes towards the end cut out, giving the film a somewhat more streamlined effect. Your tolerance for Noe's self-indulgence will most likely decide your level of enjoyment of this, a film I imagine will very much divide audiences, but it is at the very least a visual milestone that should be seen on as big a screen as possible (though somehow I can't see this one gracing Screen 1 in the Savoy anytime soon). A flawed piece, but one flooded with moments of genius.