Enter the Void (Review)

Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void is the work of a man uninterested in normalcy. It is plotless, lethargic, graphic, repetitive, endless and frequently unpleasant. It is also no less than brilliant; a film that is constantly looking for new ways to show the audience something it hasn’t seen before. Enter the Void is not the work of a mere provocateur, but the work of a wholly original artist who has a clear, distinct vision and will do whatever it takes to fully realize it. This is a film that should be offensive and unendurable, but instead it’s unforgettable, enthralling and ultimately quite beautiful.

Noé lays it all out on the table early and often. After one of the most unforgettable and oppressive opening title sequences in recent memory, we meet Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a young drug dealer who resides in Tokyo with his stripper sister (Paz de la Huerta of Boardwalk Empire). After a brief discussion about death (foreshadowing!) she departs for the night and leaves Oscar in his drug-induced haze. Soon Oscar meets up with his friend Alex (Cyril Roy) and they go out for a drug deal. The deal turns out to be a trap, however, and Oscar ends up getting shot and killed by the police.

Oh, I should mention that all of this takes place in the first person. For the first half hour of Enter the Void, we see exactly what Oscar sees. We follow his line of sight exactly, and the camera even cuts to black once in a while to signify blinking. Noé clearly intends to place us inside Oscar’s head. Then, when Oscar dies, the camera leaves the body and begins to hover over all the action. We begin inside Oscar’s body, and we leave it along with his soul. For the remainder of the film the audience becomes a sort of ghost. We observe all yet we are powerless to intervene. This is the case with all films, obviously, but Enter the Void makes you feel it.

This is all before the really weird stuff starts happening, mind you. Watching Enter the Void is like watching the “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey on a two-and-a-half-hour loop. Many liken that famous scene to a drug trip, but Enter the Void essentially is one long drug trip. The camera doesn’t exist in the physical environment presented here, but it instead floats above and through everything. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe that Enter the Void was filmed in one long, unbroken shot. This is no less than a technical breakthrough.

I’ve talked much of Noé’s style, but what of the substance? There is undoubtedly a method to his madness, as the film meditates on the impact left behind by those that pass on to the titular “void.” For Oscar and his sister, their existence has been defined by loss since childhood. When they were toddlers, they lost their parents in a violent car crash that is shown more times than is necessary (but that’s the film for you). After this tragedy, they promised each other that they would never leave each other’s side. Most of the film features Oscar following through with this promise. Even in death, he will never let his sister be. He was once there physically, now he is there spiritually.

Enter the Void is best experienced by an audience that is willing to let it slowly wash over them. If one were to hold a magnifying glass up to individual moments, the seams are likely to show. The acting is not particularly strong, and times Noé may be too explicit with some of the sexual material. (I’m beginning to suspect Paz de la Huerta doesn’t agree to a project unless she gets to be naked half the time.) Yet the film as a whole is such a powerful, hypnotic experience that all its flaws become irrelevant. This film is about so much more than the characters being observed. It’s about life itself and death itself. When Oscar looks back through his life while he drifts off into death, he seems to be searching for the moment when it all went wrong.

It’s an exhilarating experience to watch a film the likes of which you haven’t seen before. Scene after scene commands your attention, and it dares you to come up with your own explanation for each new development. You are constantly wondering why you are seeing what you’re seeing. It’s so fascinating that when the visuals take a turn for the excessively graphic it isn’t so much shocking as natural. Noé has made a career out of never holding back, but his style in Enter the Void avoids repellency. Nay, it’s compulsively watchable and always entrancing. Based on the reception it’s received so far, Enter the Void seems destined to live for a long, long time. As over-the-top as he may be, we need more filmmakers like Gaspar Noé.

Rating:  (out of 4)

Enter the Void has been added to my Best of 2010 list, coming in at no. 6. As such, Doug Liman’s Fair Game has been moved to no. 11. Find the whole list here.