2009
Director: Gaspar Noe
Cast: Paz de La Huerta, Nathaniel Brown, and Cyril Roy
Plot: A drug-dealing teen is killed in Japan, after which he reappears as a ghost to watch over his sister.
Enter the Void will be some people's favorite movie of the year, hands down, while everyone else will think it a completely slow, boring, soft-core porno masquerading as an art house film. I happen to fall in the former category, I loved this movie, and since I saw it a few weeks ago I can't stop thinking about it. I have an overwhelming desire to watch it again, all one hundred and sixty trippy minutes of it. There is something truly hypnotic about Enter the Void, and although it is very dark and disgusting at times, it is also very peaceful. Being a ghost, as imagined by director Gaspar Noe, is a pretty low-stress state of being where we float effortlessly over streets, through buildings and into the sky. The entire movie is shot in a point-of-view camera style, in which the camera sees through the eyes of the main character, Oscar. Though some will likely find this cinematography gimmicky, it seemed integral to the mood and ambiance of the film. We are passive observers to the scenes, and we pop into the lives of other characters almost at random. There usually isn't all that much going on, unless its sex. Which brings us to Paz de la Huerta (that's "Peace of the Orchard" for you non-Spanish speakers), who portrays Oscar's sister, and who is always the one sexing, or being sexed depending on the scene. It is ultimately Linda who seems to be the catalyst of her brother's downfall. She wears her sexuality like a big red bullseye, and it quickly becomes evident that Oscar isn't up to the task of protecting her from the predators she attracts out of the dark alleys and stripclubs of Tokyo.
Some may think that there is a lack of story to this movie, but I'd argue against that point. Certainly, there isn't a classical plot and I'm not sure there is a lot of the highly-touted "character development", but the film has its own perspective if nothing else. The journey we take through the afterlife is described point by point early on in the film, and it seems to be an obvious cue to sit back and let the images flow over us rather than worry about where the movie is going. And arguably what will be most interesting to both lovers and haters of Enter the Void is the imagery, not the plot. Besides the ghost shots mentioned above, you have the visual hallucinations of a (living) man in the grip of a powerful psychotropic drug. These pulsating organic visions transform and expand across the screen for many minutes, just long enough to appreciate them but not so long as to become tedious in this humble viewer's opinion. Ever a stickler for detail, Gaspar Noe even expertly portrays the transition into this brief drugged-state, which starts with disquieting irregularities of reality that grow and soon overwhelm the user and audience. Then in more intense moments late in the ghost trance, benign images contort to fish-eye proportions for unsettling effects. Did I mention most of the movie is set in Tokyo? So all of these effects are overlaid on what is already a visually overpowering urban landscape. By the end of the movie my brain felt a little melty, in a good way. And any movie that visually stimulates my brain into a state of cozy exhaustion is worth a second viewing in my book.
