Gaspar Noé’s film Enter The Void is possibly the most accidentally brilliant film ever made. It’s also possible that it is the most over-hyped, self-indulgent wastes of film ever. I go back and forth on this film the more I think about it and, since watching it, that has been often. Whether you love it or hate it, you will definitely agree that Enter The Void is a hauntingly disturbing film and one that you won’t shake free from your brain for a long time.
THE FILM
The film is told from the first person perspective of Oscar, a Westerner living in Toyko who has somewhat accidentally become a drug dealer. Actually, that isn’t entirely accurate, the film unfolds as if you, the viewer, are actually inside Oscar’s consciousness. The audience perceives events as if they were actually inside Oscar’s brain, looking through his eyes. This includes his drug trips, which are quite strange. This point of view gets even more bizarre once Oscar is shot and killed around the thirty minute mark with nearly two hours left in the movie. At that point Oscar dies and goes through an out of body experience that makes the earlier drug segments look fairly normal. The narrative becomes decidedly non-linear as we see Oscar’s childhood along with the events that lead to the beginning of the film and then the effect his death has on his sister, Linda, and good friend, Alex.
That description does not even begin to do justice to the strikingly visual sense of disconnectedness that is depicted in this film. Right from the beginning I felt on edge and disturbed by what I was seeing, yet unable to look away or stop the film. The opening credits assault you with blaring sound and nearly unreadable pace and colors which immediately unnerves. The flow of the story is pretty ballistic and through Noé’s clever editing and use of brightly colored hallucinogenic sequences gives the feeling that the whole things is one long, unbroken take. Looked at for the visual style and technique with which it was put together, this is an extraordinary piece of filmmaking. It’s the content and story being told that sharply divides audiences. To be clear, whether I’m in the love it or hate it camp changes every time I think about Enter The Void and I don’t know if I’ll ever have a clear decision.
THE EXTRAS
There are a few extras on this disc including some deleted scenes, trailer and yes, unused trailers. There are a couple of features on visual effects and how some of the film was shot, but like the film itself they are present in a very unorthodox manner. There are no interviews, instead the sequences are presented as they were seen in the film and flip back and forth between raw footage, computer overlays and final scene. Strangely, it’s better than most documentary style features that have talking heads explaining things as this shows you how it was actually accomplished.
If the true art of a film is to provoke discussion and make you think about it for long after you’ve finished watching it, then Enter The Void succeeds magnificently. Noé has unquestionably broken new ground and forced a re-thinking of the construction of film narratives. He certainly belongs in the same level as David Lynch, Darren Aronofsky and, quite possible, Stanley Kubrick. Enter The Void is uncompromising, unapologetic and raw and I certainly applaud its creator for making exactly what he set out to make. It is wisely left to the individual viewer as to whether it is a beautiful masterpiece or ugly voyeuristic tripe. As I’ve said, I go from one extreme to the other often. One things is certain, it is not a mediocre film.