Before I even begin to dissect this film, let me just say, that I loved it. It is by far the best film I saw at MIFF this year, and probably the best film I’ve seen in the last 5 years. In terms of creativity, visual imagery and overall brilliance, this film is it.
Gaspar Noe – infamous for Irreversible (his previous film which features intense rape scenes) brings to the screen, this inventive and visually stunning tale of Oscar, a drug dealer living in Tokyo with his sister Linda, who is a stripper.
From the moment the film starts, you are thrown into the chaotic and frenetic world of the film. The credits which run for approximately 2 minutes, is a bombardment of the cast and crews names in an assortment of flashing neon signs. It really makes you feel as if you are stuck in Tokyo on drugs and it’s really intensely overwhelming, but a brilliant device to introduce us to this world that Noe is trying to create for his audience. The last bit of the credits, we see the word ENTER before the film starts.
The film is all shot from Oscar’s point of view (another amazing device for this film) and next we see him smoking DMT in his small Tokyo apartment. What follows next is about 15 minutes of intense visual hallucinations which are remarkably spot on. Colours and shapes morph into one another and take various forms, before Oscars phone rings and he is snapped back to reality. He’s been summoned to a club to do a deal. Oscars mentor, Alex shows up at his apartment, Oscar tries to disguise the fact his tripping out, Alex and Oscar leave to go to the club together. What’s most brilliant about these scenes is that the dialogue seemingly makes little sense in some parts, Alex goes off on a tangent about the afterlife and reincarnation, and Oscar struggles to keep up. There’s a shot where they walk down an external stairwell that seemingly goes forever, reminiscent of nights out where you walk through the city and have conversations with anyone, which the next day you remember maybe about 20% of.
Oscar arrives at the club, turns out it was hoax, a drug bust takes place, and he ends up getting shot. This is all in the first maybe 45 minutes of the film. The next 2 hours and 15 minutes is dedicated to Noe’s idea of what happens to us when we die and in the afterlife. Oscar and Linda make a pact after their parents died (horrendously in a car crash which is repeatedly depicted in several intense flash backs) when they were younger, that if anything ever happened to the other, they would never leave them. So Oscar watches over Linda, along with his other companions, we see Oscar’s memories, flashbacks and such all the while he floats about Tokyo like an invisible spirit.
What I liked most about the later scenes of the film is that is exactly what my dreams are like. You float about go from one place to another, one minute you’re doing a day to day thing, next your in a memory from 5 years ago. Noe weaves together all the hallucinations and memories and observations from Oscars point of view expertly.
If anything, the film does drag on in some parts, and I felt that Noe did throw some aspects in there to purposefully be controversial. There is a rather drawn out scene in which Linda has an abortion, but having said that I guess what he was trying to achieve is the sense of when you’re tripping out, horrific things seem a thousand times more horrific and it’s all your senses can hone in on…maybe? But there was also a little bit too much of the soul entity soaring over Tokyo and it could’ve maybe been about half an hour shorter. There have been reviews saying that it’s barely unwatchable and awful and drawn on too long, and I agree, to a degree, but I would not say the film is terrible, by no means. The sheer creativity and imagery of the film is groundbreaking.
The performances were generally pretty good, the only time you see Oscars face is when he looks in the mirror, or when he leaves his body after being shot (to which he quips “Don’t worry, it’s just the drugs, you’re not dead, you’re just tripping”). The stand out performance comes from Emily Alyn Lind who plays the young Linda. In one of the flashbacks to their childhood, when Oscar and Linda’s parents died in a car crash, with the two kids in the backseat, Lind sits there, screaming and crying her heart out in the most gut wrenchingly intense scene. Her mothers heard splattered open in front of her. It’s remarkable that a girl of maybe 8 or 9 is able to do a scene like that, but it also makes you think how do they manage to get that kind of reaction from her?
The films setting of Tokyo is perfect as well, as I said earlier, the opening credits with the Neon lights really puts you in the setting, it’s a motif that is carried throughout the film. One of Oscars friends makes a UV city, which he spends some time soaring about once he’s dead as well. The last thing we see before the end credits roll, are the words THE VOID.
I don’t really know if this has been a helpful review, I’ve kind of just brain farted my thoughts out, because Enter the Void certainly did things to my brain that confused me for a few days after. I guess the best way to sum it up, is by saying it's like being on acid for 3 hours. So if you know what that's like, then you'll possibly see the merit of the film...
All that's left for me to say is go see this film. You might hate it, you might love it, regardless, you should see it. Everyone needs to see this film. It’s one of those films.
FOUR AND A HALF STARS
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