Movie Review - Enter the Void

Enter the Void (2010)

Starring Paz de la Huerta and Nathaniel Brown

Directed by Gaspar Noé
***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

I can only assume that Enter the Void portrays accurate images of drug-induced euphoria.  In fact, the entire film itself is probably as close to an hallucinogenic journey I'll ever take.  By far, one of the oddest films I've ever seen, there are things that I could dislike intensely about Enter the Void, but, in the end, this is one interesting piece of filmmaking that shockingly had me intrigued for what could have been (and honestly what should have been) an incredibly long two-and-a-half hours.

The story of this one is not what is going to win you over.  When Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) is killed in a drug bust, he finds himself becoming a guardian angel of sorts to his sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta).  And that's kind of it.  And remember this film is 150 minutes.  Shockingly, however, it is the way director Gasper Noé portrays this on film that grabbed me and pulled me in.

Noé's previous effort, Irreversible, was a unflinching and uncomfortable film that also won me over because of directorial technique -- he reversed the order of scenes, putting the conclusion at the beginning of the film and the opening scene at the end of the film.  While Irreversible is perhaps most well known for an excruciatingly lengthy rape scene, it's the stylistic approach of Noé that is what I choose to remember about the 2002 French flick (which, ultimately, despite the neat concept faltered in the story department).

Similarly in Enter the Void (which, unlike Irreversible, is in English), Noé employs a unique vision.  After the epileptic seizure inducing opening credits (seriously, there was a warning posted at theaters that showed this film), for the opening 20 minutes, we are Oscar, seeing everything from his point of view.  When he blinks, the screen literally blinks.  Initially, I thought this was going to be a horrendous and obnoxious way to watch a movie.  And it probably would have been, but thankfully Oscar dies at the end of the first reel.  And at that point, Oscar rises up out of his body and essentially becomes a ghost with the ability to travel across the seedy underworld of Tokyo, peeking into rooms and watching over his sister (with whom he has an incredibly odd and discomforting relationship).  

There's really no proper way to describe Noé's techniques here because they exist solely in a medium that is visual (and that's obviously the best way to "take them in").  I readily admit that most people will hate this movie.  Not just hate, but perhaps despise it with a passion.  You'll say that the acting (particularly that of Paz de la Heurta) is awful.  You'll comment that the improvised dialog is tedious.  And you'd be one hundred percent right on both accounts.  But Noé is a risk-taker (which is evident in the two films of his I've seen) and that makes up for what the film lacks.  

Let's be honest (and this will be the dealbreaker for most of you) -- is there another "mainstream" film in which the following is depicted (and I'm going to copy this from wikipedia because I can think of no other way to describe it):  Oscar's "aura" travels inside Linda's abdomen to witness an ejaculation from within.  If that sounds odd/gross, it's even more odd/gross to see it onscreen (I let out an audible, "Really?  Jesus..." when I saw it).  There's no reason this film shouldn't be screaming "I'M PRETENTIOUS!"  Somehow, Enter the Void worked for me, though.  I found myself captivated by the filmmaking aspect of the whole thing and honestly look forward to whatever uneasy feelings Noé causes me to have in his next film.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+