Enter The Void

Enter The Void, (2009)

Director Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void is the first film by him that I've seen, and it is quite the introduction. Based somewhat on the Tibetan Book Of The Dead, the film begins with the main character, Oscar, being killed by Tokyo police after being set up in a drug-dealing sting. The “story”, as it were, revolves around those closest to Oscar, including his younger sister, Linda, and his best friend, Alex. As the repercussions of his death begin to resonate in their lives, Noe explores the themes of life, death, love, forgiveness, and honesty. Oh, and he also manages to do this by creating some of the best, trippiest visuals of any film I've ever seen, and by portraying the entire film in the first-person point-of-view. And also, the craziest title sequence you'll ever see.

The plot starts shortly after Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a low-level drug dealer/user living in Tokyo with his sister, Linda (Paz De La Huerta) is shot and killed by police at the night club/bar The Void. Oscar's friend Alex (Cyril Roy), had accompanied him to the bar, but wanted nothing to do with the dealing, and managed to witness the police carrying out his friend's body; Alex's importance to the story is fixed both figuratively and immediately (Alex introduced Oscar to the supplier Bruno, who ultimately supplied Oscar with the load of drugs that got him killed), as well as having supplied Oscar with the Book Of The Dead that makes for the thematic core of the film. Oscar's death serves as the opening scene for what is essentially a treatise on life, love, hate, pain, anger, loneliness, friendship, loyalty, trust, and sex.

Lots and lots and lots of sex (I guess I know what void Noe was referring to! Ba-zing!).

The plot also serves the purpose of fully, completely immersing the audience in the lives of the characters: for the first thirty minutes or so, the camera is entirely in the first-person (something which has been attempted for the running time of a feature-length film only with Lady In The Lake, a film noir from the 1950's). The approach tends to fail, typically because without knowing the character's face, age, etc., the audience has trouble fully relating to characters (a lot can be learned about someone just by looking at their face). In the aforementioned film, the audience sees the main character's face only when he looks into a mirror; here, the same thing occurs: at one point Oscar looks into a mirror to rinse his face off, and we see his reflection. After Oscar's death, his spirit (or whatever it is the camera is supposed to represent) floats throughout Tokyo revisiting his friends and sister, and we never again see him (although we know, just by virtue of how the camera moves, in a very deliberate, hand-held manner, that Oscar is still present in some sense); other times, he relives and revisits his past life (he sees himself bathing with his mother and sister; he re-witnesses his parents' deaths during a head-on collision; he relives promising his younger sister he'd never leave her). His revisiting his past life is always shown from just behind his head (as if Oscar's spirit were watching from just of the shoulder of his past self).

Truth be told, this is a camera's film, one that redefines what one can do with a camera (and, also, where one can put a camera. The camera literally goes everywhere). The plot is largely inconsequential, as the film is more an affirmation of life, with all the ugliness, pain, and, ultimately, trippy beauty therein. It's a bold film, maddening in its repetition, and its apparent lack of taste (I never thought I'd watch a graphic abortion in a film...but, here we go...), and sporting performances that border on genius and heartrending and fearless (Paz de la Huerta; Emily Alyn Lind; Jesse Kuhn), to just...well...fucking bad (Nathaniel Brown. Truth be told, I'm glad he got shot early on. He was a bit charmless and extremely bland).

The real stars of the film, however, are the sound editors, scorer (Thomas Bangalter), and cinematographer (Benoit Debe). Especially the cinematographer. Damn. To essentially create a character out of something we never see, and to effortlessly fuse each image to create a narrative-long single shot deserves all the praise it could possibly ever get.

I might as well end this review here and say that this is a film that absolutely must be seen. It's maddening, it's not for everyone, it's overlong...but, ultimately, it is rewarding. It's emotional, it's sad, it's funny, it's trippy. It's beautiful. It's like. It's unlike anything you'll see.

You just have to be in a mood for it.