Enter the Void (2009) | Indies Now Playing Porn

enter the neon void

The previews for Enter the Void distilled the film's candy-coated visual essence into quite the tempting package; coupled with critic quotes from Manohla Dargis referring to the movie as 'pure cinema,' (check her New York Times article) and the expectative can become, well, high.

A drug-drenched circular narrative with spectacular visual elements, Void is actually unusual for its 1st person perspective, a POV belonging to Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a young man lost in the murky depths of Tokyo's dark underbelly.

After the visual assault that are the opening credits -it's awesome!- the film segues to Oscar smoking DMT.  It's not long after, as part of a set-up/ police sting, that he finds himself unexpectedly shot and dying.  From there, suspended between life and death in a DMT haze, Oscar's newly omniscient state becomes a whirlwind of time, where memories meld with the future, revealing elements of story by proxy.

With the Tibetan Book of the Dead given as a point of reference, Void is heavily preoccupied with questions of post-death consciousness as much as it is with drugs, making it feel like The Holy Mountain (1973) had sex with Requiem For A Dream (2000) and had a baby. The sex reference is not off base either. With Oscar's sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta) working as an exotic dancer in a place of ill repute right next to a love ho (love hotel), graphic scenes of the sexually-related are included by design. Neither for nor against it, an abortion is depicted quite realistically and vividly, to the extent of a closeup on the bloody remains. We see love-ho blow jobs and tons of fucking. And while moans of pleasure abound, they're equated with the screams of newborns. We even see a penis head from inside Linda as it shoots. None of this is gratuitous, but is in fact intrinsic to Noé's filmic treatise on reality and life where Oscar's spirit is depicted hovering around fornicating bodies at that peak moment of conception with the intent to incarnate.

What is questionable is the effectiveness of what can only be described as glorified screen savers, meant to signify moments beyond words, be they DMT-induced or something meta-natural, like memory, like fucking, or life, meaning consciousness. The technique is used right at the start, as the DMT begins to dissolve Oscar's perceptions. It becomes a recurrent motif, and it's significance isn't lost, and while a different manner in which to convey the meanings evoked is impossible to imagine, these scenes sometimes go from orchestral to seemingly meandering.

In the end, Enter the Void is a piece that sticks with you, lending much fodder to the mental mulch. Though the visual trappings, phenomenal as they are, may suggest an exciting action-packed drama, it's readily apparent they are merely scratches on the surface. It's what lies beneath that Noé is reaching for.

dir Gaspar Noé

uk official site
ifc official site