Movie Review: Enter The Void

The Psychedelic tour of life after death

Written and directed by Gaspar Noé, “Enter the Void” is a psychedelic movie where, with beauty, mild and sharp jolts, and mesmerizing camerawork, he tries to open the doors of perception.
The title of “Enter the Void,” which sounds like both a dare and a fun-house fascination, bodes well in a work about death and other difficult times, however, it likewise communicates Mr. Noé's bad-boy, punk attitude, which can be difficult to take seriously.

Set in Tokyo and often around evening time, the film is isolated into two segments. In the first, a young American, Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), smokes some hallucinogens — the screen exploding with phosphorescent, biomorphic forms — strolls around, buys and sells drugs, and talks about the Tibetan Book of the Dead. In the second segment, Oscar's spirit (or something) seems to isolate from his apparently dying body, looking down at the bleeding man curled on the floor. The flesh will unquestionably rot, however the spirit will proceed with the journey, plunging into the night and darker memoirs.

Is Oscar dead or dreaming? Really he appears to be more alive as a spirit, if only because the second segment liberates the camera from the limitations of ordinary human activity. That is genuine despite the fact that from the start of the film we share Oscar's literal point of view, seeing what he sees. It's an unusual vantage. Films by and large attempt to lock you into the story by putting a camera in intimate proximity with a character, as with over-the-shoulder shots. We're so accustomed to these conventions that we tend to notice just the deviations, as in the work of Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne ("The Son"), where the camera at times hovers so close to a character's ear that you can't see much else in the shot, creating a sense of shared vision.
One would find the beauty in the extended-play version because there seemed to be more astral-drift and trippy flowers.

“Enter the Void," in spite of its endeavor to fuse man with machine, is hardly as friendly, however, it's certainly a personal work. In the event that you think about solid stories, don't trouble. Barely anything happens here in routine movie terms, though there's a lot of decorative pulp — drug dealers, drug abusers, pole dancers, and love-hotel clients — none of it gripping. Oscar's sister, played by Paz de la Huerta in a monotone and with her customary lack of clothes, is easy on the eyes if hard on the ears. What's more, the scene of a cataclysmic accident that the siblings shared quite a long time ago is stunning, at least the first time around. Sadly, Mr. Noé, never one for subtlety, rehashes the trauma a few times, draining it of its power.

P.S. There's a graphic scene of an abortion close to the end that is topped with an outrageously intact fetus, a scene that talks more to Mr. Noé's obligation to Stanley Kubrick and the star child in "2001" than to the apparent profound themes in "Enter the Void." Of course, for a few, Kubrick is God. Mr. Noé, on the other hand, is a follower, on the off chance that one to watch.

Running time- Long Version: 2 hours 41 minutes & International Version: 2 hours 23 minutes. This film is not rated.







Written by Sukanya Roy
Artist, Critic, Writer, Photographer, Movie buff, Graphic Designer, Literature and Geography enthusiast, Soccer fan, and Imaginative.