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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
ENTER THE VOID
Noé sticks to his now-signature style of long tracking shots, creating a haunted fairground ride through Tokyo’s nightlife. Oily red-tinged visuals, impossibly smooth camera maneuvers, and often nauseating low-frequency sound all create an ideal omniscient perspective for the journey of a newly-dead soul, or whatever it is that still perceives things after death. Noé continues in Enter the Void to effectively use graphic sex, violence, and heavy drug use not only to shock, but to heighten an audience’s physical response to the story. His most important hire during production, he says, was the key grip—someone who could master the complex camera rigs needed for the ethereal floating effect. (In 2002, Noé and Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter used riot-control sonic technology for the Irreversible score, reportedly causing several audience members to bolt in sickness from the premiere.) The technique is nearly flawless. This film is one of the more powerful physical experiences I’ve ever had in a theater, but the ideas don’t quite sell. The relationship between Oscar and Linda is a proto-Freudian mix of love and resentment—we’re not sure if the suddenly rebellious (and often nearly naked) Linda wants to screw over her irresponsible older brother by defying him as a parental figure, or just screw him. Tokyo, and the introduction to Oscar’s unchecked party life, has a strong effect on Linda, who surprises her brother by quickly taking a job as a dancer in a seedy strip club. We flashback to the events of their childhood, including the event of their parents’ tragic death in a car crash (I’ve never jumped so high), and learn a few key bits of psychological information about the pair. Over 137(!) minutes, it becomes much clearer what’s going on between Alex, Oscar, Linda, and finally Mario (Masato Tanno), Linda’s slimeball boss, but the focus on this animalistic love circle is satisfying on a purely stoner level. Like tripped out films before this one, The Waking Life included, the methods are truly astounding, but the ideas just don’t go deep enough without chemical enhancement. The likewise shocking and ultra-violent Irreversible had such a wonderfully complicated notion of guilt and blame that I neither doubt Noé’s intelligence or his ability to tell a story that reflects it. This time around, though, he just went where the convolutions of his mind took him. While I resist the urge to buy into his oversimplifications of human psychology, I applaud the bold move. What is
incredibly complex, and completely fulfilling on an intellectual
level, is Noé’s abuse of logic in this story. Linda’s resentment toward
Oscar after their forced separation as children drives her to disobey him
by screwing the sleazy Mario. As we see through the
perspective of Oscar’s soul, Linda and Mario are actually screwing at
the moment of his death. The irony is that if Linda knew Oscar were
dead, she wouldn’t be having sex at all. In fact, after he dies, she ends the tryst.
Noé, ever the provocateur, adds a twist: Oscar now knows what’s
going on. Through the eyes of his soul, the audience sees the act, and
is a proxy for his feelings, manifesting jealousy, resentment, and pity.
Through Noé’s unique storytelling style, we get closer to the characters
than we otherwise could, even uncomfortably close. Noé may not have made
as intellectual a film this time, but he has brought his audience about as
close to the base of humanity as ever.
Michael Lee
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It wouldn’t be wrong to call
Enter the Void “sophomoric,” just keep in mind that’s not
necessarily a bad thing. Gaspar Noé may not be quite as interested in
trippy dorm-room philosophy as, say, Richard Linklater, but with his
third feature, he definitely proves he’s not too proud to fully explore
it. His two main characters are a pair of stoners, Oscar and Alex
(Nathaniel Brown and Cyril Roy), who’ve been living and partying in
Tokyo. Alex’s interest in Tibetan spirituality encourages the two to
pursue a higher awareness through the use of the hallucinogen DMT. Oscar
winds up selling even more than he uses, which leads to his surprise
bust and shooting death at the hands of the trigger-happy Japanese police. Immediately, his soul rises from the
body and begins a fluid and mesmerizing tour of the crime scene and the
surrounding nightclub district, while also revisiting scenes from his
own past, which examine both young men’s convoluted
relationship with Oscar’s beautiful sister, Linda (Paz de la Huerta).