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Editorial Reviews
Controversial and brilliant director Gasper Noe follows his worldwide sensation Irreversible with another triumph. Enter The Void is Noe s most assured and haunting film yet, a head trip a la Stanley Kubrick s 2001: A Space Odyssey and at the same time a piercing modern drama. Newcomer Nathaniel Brown and Paz de la Huerta (HBO s Boardwalk Empire) star as a brother and sister trapped in the hellish nighttime world of Tokyo where he deals drugs and she works as a stripper.
A crime gone bad leads to shocking violence and then moments of transcendence in which the movie plunges viewers into death and rebirth like no film has ever done before via mesmerizing camerawork (The New York Times) that make it a dazzling and brutal exercise in cinematic envelope-pushing (New York Post). Stunning audiences around the world, Enter The Void is a cinematic experience like no other.
A crime gone bad leads to shocking violence and then moments of transcendence in which the movie plunges viewers into death and rebirth like no film has ever done before via mesmerizing camerawork (The New York Times) that make it a dazzling and brutal exercise in cinematic envelope-pushing (New York Post). Stunning audiences around the world, Enter The Void is a cinematic experience like no other.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
96 of 111 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
If there was ever a two minute opening credit sequence that could grab me by the balls, it's from Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void. I'm confident it will have that effect on most people. You can see it here if you don't believe me. I've never seen anything quite like it. It's a strange beginning when considering the way it contrasts with the rest of the film. This hyper-frenetic, psychedelic introduction is the star of a film running around two and a half hours, and you'll feel every minute of its run time.
Noé has made a career as provocateur. His last few films involve a level of violence, sex and depravity (and a mixture of all three) that anyone could argue is excessive and exploitive. The problem, however, is that Noé is so talented, it can't altogether be dismissed. It reminds of Lars von Trier, and his latest film Antichrist. Enter the Void doesn't represent a marked change in style for Noé. All the base elements are there: sex, drugs, incest, abortion. And it's completely warranted to feel you're owed an explanation as to why you should subject yourself to them. I don't have an answer. But I can say that there are such dazzling flashes of genius sprinkled in throughout the film, that wading through the rest of the bog will be worth it for some. Even though you'll come out of the experience probably feeling dirty, and empty.
Enter the Void is losely based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a canon of scripture for Buddhists. It is an instructional manuel filled with directives for those between this life, and their next reincarnation-what they should prepare to experience, and how they should react. Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) is an American, living in Tokyo. Or at least a Noé-esque Tokyo full of drugs and bass-thumbing club music. He begins to deal some drugs and doing a lot of heavy psychedelics; the film opens on him smoking a bowl of DMT. Here, the screen evolves into rotation patterns, made up of bright colors, accompanied by resonant sounds. It's very clearly an hommage to Stanley Kubrick's famous tunnel of colored light scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey. When the film premiered at Cannes, it was seventeen minutes longer. Seventeen extra minutes of these sorts of effects.
Shot from Oscar's point of view, we mainly get to see the back of his neck, only glancing at his face when he looks in a mirror. He gets gunned down by Tokyo police in a seedy club bathroon. As he's trying to dispose of his stash, he yells that he has gun to prevent them from entering his stall. He dies. At this point, Oscar's essence slowly seperates from his body, and the remainder of the film, still in Oscar's perspective, is seen from what is now nearly a third person, but wordless narrative. He floats about the city, through walls, no longer constrained by the limits of a physical body, but unable to communicate with the world that surrounds him.
He weaves in andout of his friends' presences, and follows his sister, Linda, around (a ubiquitously nude Paz de la Heurta). Linda, a stripper at a club named Sex Power Money) and Oscar share a bond much too close for comfort since a horrific, shared experience in their youth involving the death of their parents. Noé subjects the audience to this experience over and over again on screen which results in a slightly jarred understanding of why Linda and Oscar's relationship is so distorted. There are many scenes too unpleasant for any film. Particularly, an extremely realistic and graphic abortion, and an explicit sex scene made up of impossible, and impossibly candid shots.
Enter the Void could easily be classified as experimental as there's not really much that happens on screen from a plot's perspective. It's a lot of floating-in-the-sky camera work, with little onscreen substance. On one hand, this leaves plenty of room for meditation on what death is, and how we can, or should relate to it. And it's easy to take advantage of this opportunity. On the other hand, two hours of mediation isn't always the desired product when heading to the movies.
Noé provides his shocks and provocations. There's no shortage of them. But every now and then, all of the wildly unrestrained facets of the film converge and the cacophony of it all gets quite. Then there are, quite literally, revelatory moments that make Enter the Void exhaustively interesting, and completely unforgettable.
Noé has made a career as provocateur. His last few films involve a level of violence, sex and depravity (and a mixture of all three) that anyone could argue is excessive and exploitive. The problem, however, is that Noé is so talented, it can't altogether be dismissed. It reminds of Lars von Trier, and his latest film Antichrist. Enter the Void doesn't represent a marked change in style for Noé. All the base elements are there: sex, drugs, incest, abortion. And it's completely warranted to feel you're owed an explanation as to why you should subject yourself to them. I don't have an answer. But I can say that there are such dazzling flashes of genius sprinkled in throughout the film, that wading through the rest of the bog will be worth it for some. Even though you'll come out of the experience probably feeling dirty, and empty.
Enter the Void is losely based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a canon of scripture for Buddhists. It is an instructional manuel filled with directives for those between this life, and their next reincarnation-what they should prepare to experience, and how they should react. Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) is an American, living in Tokyo. Or at least a Noé-esque Tokyo full of drugs and bass-thumbing club music. He begins to deal some drugs and doing a lot of heavy psychedelics; the film opens on him smoking a bowl of DMT. Here, the screen evolves into rotation patterns, made up of bright colors, accompanied by resonant sounds. It's very clearly an hommage to Stanley Kubrick's famous tunnel of colored light scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey. When the film premiered at Cannes, it was seventeen minutes longer. Seventeen extra minutes of these sorts of effects.
Shot from Oscar's point of view, we mainly get to see the back of his neck, only glancing at his face when he looks in a mirror. He gets gunned down by Tokyo police in a seedy club bathroon. As he's trying to dispose of his stash, he yells that he has gun to prevent them from entering his stall. He dies. At this point, Oscar's essence slowly seperates from his body, and the remainder of the film, still in Oscar's perspective, is seen from what is now nearly a third person, but wordless narrative. He floats about the city, through walls, no longer constrained by the limits of a physical body, but unable to communicate with the world that surrounds him.
He weaves in andout of his friends' presences, and follows his sister, Linda, around (a ubiquitously nude Paz de la Heurta). Linda, a stripper at a club named Sex Power Money) and Oscar share a bond much too close for comfort since a horrific, shared experience in their youth involving the death of their parents. Noé subjects the audience to this experience over and over again on screen which results in a slightly jarred understanding of why Linda and Oscar's relationship is so distorted. There are many scenes too unpleasant for any film. Particularly, an extremely realistic and graphic abortion, and an explicit sex scene made up of impossible, and impossibly candid shots.
Enter the Void could easily be classified as experimental as there's not really much that happens on screen from a plot's perspective. It's a lot of floating-in-the-sky camera work, with little onscreen substance. On one hand, this leaves plenty of room for meditation on what death is, and how we can, or should relate to it. And it's easy to take advantage of this opportunity. On the other hand, two hours of mediation isn't always the desired product when heading to the movies.
Noé provides his shocks and provocations. There's no shortage of them. But every now and then, all of the wildly unrestrained facets of the film converge and the cacophony of it all gets quite. Then there are, quite literally, revelatory moments that make Enter the Void exhaustively interesting, and completely unforgettable.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By Bryan Byrd
Format:DVD
Disclaimer: I viewed this film as a streaming rental, and as such, cannot comment on the audio or visual quality of the disc. My review concerns the entertainment value of the film itself.
Bound to appeal to only a small subset of film buffs (though to them it should have an intense appeal), 'Enter the Void' is an exploration of the split seconds between life and death, and an experimental trip through method and technique of film-making. Gaspar Noe, the director of 'Irreversible', is the real star here, as this is above all the vision of the helmsman rather than a vehicle for its actors. In fact, several of the key players were first-time unprofessionals, although that made little difference if any toward the film's overall effectiveness. To me, success or failure for this particular sort of film is better measured by how well it communicates its ideas rather than by more traditional yardsticks - but having said that, it's also important to note that a reliance on unusual camera-work, disjointed narrative, and uncommon acting styles is probably going to turn many viewers away from the film before they give the ideas a chance to resonate.
A orphaned young man and his sister, both Westerners, are struggling to get by in Tokyo as a drug dealer and a stripper, respectively. In the early going of the film, the young man, Oscar, is set up for a sting by one of his buyers, and is shot by the police. For the next two hours or so, directer Gaspar Noe envisions the moments prior to death, borrowing heavily on flashback, the effects of the drug DMT, and THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD. Shot entirely from Oscar's point of view (the only time he appears on-screen is if he catches his reflection, or when he lifts out of his body after being shot), the camera zooms around the hyper-kinetic nightscape of Tokyo, as Oscar's spirit - or Oscar's imagination - zips back and forth between city streets and alleyways, between past and present, and - perhaps - between one state of existence and another.
Visually, this film is unlike any other I've seen, with its striking crane shots and laboriously complex style. Although I thought it captivating for the first half, the effect wore off soon and lost its freshness. Still, based only on the look of the film, I'd still recommend it to those who are intrigued by inventive camera work and idiosyncratic methods. I'm positive they would walk away with several technical insights and a sincere appreciation for the effort that went into making it.
Yet that's too small a group of film enthusiasts to reach for; there must be more to a film than the way it looks, so we are back to story. I feel as though I misinterpreted the film as I watched it - it was only after reading some of Mr. Noe's comments about his work, and discussing the movie with someone else that I feel I got the intent behind it all. Without those insights, I feel as though most viewers would have the same first impression that I had - that this was really a rather simple tale about death and reincarnation. Reading the director's comments put a different spin on the story, but, unfortunately, did not add any depth to it - instead it then became a roundabout story of death and nihilism. I don't have any objection to either interpretation, but the unavoidable fact is that the film could have made either point in half the time. Two hours and forty-one minutes of swooping around Tokyo from a bird's-eye vantage point becomes repetitive rather than unique at around the hour-and-a-half mark, and the entire process loses the edge that made it worthwhile in the first place.
Despite these flaws, there are certain film lovers to whom I would recommend the movie - especially those who are always looking for something out of the mainstream. It may not satisfy completely, but there is no doubt that 'Enter the Void' is reaching for something other than safe and sound storytelling. The story may not be as profound as the effort behind it intimates, and the length of the film may indicate self-indulgence from the director, but it is unique. That alone is valuable in an industry that seldom challenges its audience.
One last trivial note: This film has the most fantastic title sequence I've ever seen. It's almost as if it were designed to induce a sensual stimulation that replicates a drug high or an epileptic seizure. Kudos to the design team behind a most unusual introduction.
Bound to appeal to only a small subset of film buffs (though to them it should have an intense appeal), 'Enter the Void' is an exploration of the split seconds between life and death, and an experimental trip through method and technique of film-making. Gaspar Noe, the director of 'Irreversible', is the real star here, as this is above all the vision of the helmsman rather than a vehicle for its actors. In fact, several of the key players were first-time unprofessionals, although that made little difference if any toward the film's overall effectiveness. To me, success or failure for this particular sort of film is better measured by how well it communicates its ideas rather than by more traditional yardsticks - but having said that, it's also important to note that a reliance on unusual camera-work, disjointed narrative, and uncommon acting styles is probably going to turn many viewers away from the film before they give the ideas a chance to resonate.
A orphaned young man and his sister, both Westerners, are struggling to get by in Tokyo as a drug dealer and a stripper, respectively. In the early going of the film, the young man, Oscar, is set up for a sting by one of his buyers, and is shot by the police. For the next two hours or so, directer Gaspar Noe envisions the moments prior to death, borrowing heavily on flashback, the effects of the drug DMT, and THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD. Shot entirely from Oscar's point of view (the only time he appears on-screen is if he catches his reflection, or when he lifts out of his body after being shot), the camera zooms around the hyper-kinetic nightscape of Tokyo, as Oscar's spirit - or Oscar's imagination - zips back and forth between city streets and alleyways, between past and present, and - perhaps - between one state of existence and another.
Visually, this film is unlike any other I've seen, with its striking crane shots and laboriously complex style. Although I thought it captivating for the first half, the effect wore off soon and lost its freshness. Still, based only on the look of the film, I'd still recommend it to those who are intrigued by inventive camera work and idiosyncratic methods. I'm positive they would walk away with several technical insights and a sincere appreciation for the effort that went into making it.
Yet that's too small a group of film enthusiasts to reach for; there must be more to a film than the way it looks, so we are back to story. I feel as though I misinterpreted the film as I watched it - it was only after reading some of Mr. Noe's comments about his work, and discussing the movie with someone else that I feel I got the intent behind it all. Without those insights, I feel as though most viewers would have the same first impression that I had - that this was really a rather simple tale about death and reincarnation. Reading the director's comments put a different spin on the story, but, unfortunately, did not add any depth to it - instead it then became a roundabout story of death and nihilism. I don't have any objection to either interpretation, but the unavoidable fact is that the film could have made either point in half the time. Two hours and forty-one minutes of swooping around Tokyo from a bird's-eye vantage point becomes repetitive rather than unique at around the hour-and-a-half mark, and the entire process loses the edge that made it worthwhile in the first place.
Despite these flaws, there are certain film lovers to whom I would recommend the movie - especially those who are always looking for something out of the mainstream. It may not satisfy completely, but there is no doubt that 'Enter the Void' is reaching for something other than safe and sound storytelling. The story may not be as profound as the effort behind it intimates, and the length of the film may indicate self-indulgence from the director, but it is unique. That alone is valuable in an industry that seldom challenges its audience.
One last trivial note: This film has the most fantastic title sequence I've ever seen. It's almost as if it were designed to induce a sensual stimulation that replicates a drug high or an epileptic seizure. Kudos to the design team behind a most unusual introduction.
41 of 58 people found the following review helpful
By PsyRC
Format:DVD
Spoilers herein!
The primordial notion behind it is rebirth, but rebirth not only in the actual reincarnated physical sense, as is ultimately consummated, but also rebirth in the sense of being reintegrated with the breast; the notion of incest is absolutely pulsating throughout the entire film, and the metamorphosis of characters experienced throughout the sexual encounters is brutally direct in this sense. It would seem that the dream-like state one is immersed in after death is what allows the maximal realization of this basic instinctive drive, since it would be a state in which all repression is lifted, and desire can be experienced in its purest, most raw form without the nay-saying psychic censor beeping like crazy. This is clearly too threatening for a conscious "normal" person to face up to in their everyday experience, thus dreams and reality are distorted to conform to our particular compromise formations, allowing us to live day-to-day without being overburdened by the anxiety of facing our sexual urges head-on.
In its analytic scope, the Oedipal ties are clearly laid out as unresolved; the little boy experiences the death of his parents with detachment, the death of the rival (his father) and of his love object (his mother) occurring simultaneously, a kind of reverse deus ex machina operating in a perverse way, the rival is killed but in a way that destroys the princess they were fighting over. The impotence he experiences (double meaning) carries its weight retroactively in the notion that his mother tells him that she loves Oscar and his father, but in "very different ways", the Lacanian notion of "the name of the father" rearing its ugly head, the mother loves something the son can never provide to her (the phallus), thus the sexualized love cannot be realized. But in a moment of utmost mirroring of the father figure, Oscar enters the body of the father and sees himself through his eyes, watching his mother contort during sex and seeing "little Oscar" at the door, watching his parents.
As the mother figure died, Oscar must appeal to the next best thing in line, the mother's daughter... And the pact to remain faithful to his sister creates a sublimated metaspace that permits the diluted enactment of his desire to be engulfed and reattached to the primordial breast, at least as a promise. Linda apparently shares in some kind of dynamic of her own, as she kisses her brother in a sensuous way, she herself living her own Elektra symbolism through Oscar. Anyway, as Oscar enters the head of Alex, the rule-free realm of the symbolic permits him to experience his fantasy of incest with his sister, turned mother (in a flash), turned sister... The morbid desire for fulfillment compels him to enter for a brief period into the aborted fetus his sister produced, even the split and murdered off component of his sister representing a possibly desired destiny. Truly the "come inside me" line almost in itself justifies choosing English as the primary language for this film, and the encapsulated space of his sister's uterus creates the holding environment for the engulfment to occur... attached at last; the most poignant moment is when the baby is still attached to his sister (or is it his mother?) by the umbilical cord and is brought to the nipple, which is the only element seen clearly (this was a very smart move, from all standpoints, as a baby's eyesight is 20/400 at birth). This moment brings to a close the consummation of Oscar's fantasy, and thus is reborn in a literal sense as well as through purposeful incestuous regression. The unity engendered and its inherent hope are fractured with the cutting of the cord, at which moment the baby immediately starts crying and is taken away, the promise of eternal bondage destroyed thus again, entering the void of an existence deprived of any enduring physical contact, regardless of how many times one reincarnates, even when one enacts their most basic forbidden wishes. On a more controversial note, perhaps Linda experienced the feeling of completeness in herself as well; her desire to possess the phallus of her brother/father becoming alive in a bizarre way. As a female entity she became whole by producing a phallus (satisfying the dispelled notion of "[...]envy"), and with a mind-twisting denouement she not only possesses but produces the familial phallus she so longed for, finding peace at last.
The primordial notion behind it is rebirth, but rebirth not only in the actual reincarnated physical sense, as is ultimately consummated, but also rebirth in the sense of being reintegrated with the breast; the notion of incest is absolutely pulsating throughout the entire film, and the metamorphosis of characters experienced throughout the sexual encounters is brutally direct in this sense. It would seem that the dream-like state one is immersed in after death is what allows the maximal realization of this basic instinctive drive, since it would be a state in which all repression is lifted, and desire can be experienced in its purest, most raw form without the nay-saying psychic censor beeping like crazy. This is clearly too threatening for a conscious "normal" person to face up to in their everyday experience, thus dreams and reality are distorted to conform to our particular compromise formations, allowing us to live day-to-day without being overburdened by the anxiety of facing our sexual urges head-on.
In its analytic scope, the Oedipal ties are clearly laid out as unresolved; the little boy experiences the death of his parents with detachment, the death of the rival (his father) and of his love object (his mother) occurring simultaneously, a kind of reverse deus ex machina operating in a perverse way, the rival is killed but in a way that destroys the princess they were fighting over. The impotence he experiences (double meaning) carries its weight retroactively in the notion that his mother tells him that she loves Oscar and his father, but in "very different ways", the Lacanian notion of "the name of the father" rearing its ugly head, the mother loves something the son can never provide to her (the phallus), thus the sexualized love cannot be realized. But in a moment of utmost mirroring of the father figure, Oscar enters the body of the father and sees himself through his eyes, watching his mother contort during sex and seeing "little Oscar" at the door, watching his parents.
As the mother figure died, Oscar must appeal to the next best thing in line, the mother's daughter... And the pact to remain faithful to his sister creates a sublimated metaspace that permits the diluted enactment of his desire to be engulfed and reattached to the primordial breast, at least as a promise. Linda apparently shares in some kind of dynamic of her own, as she kisses her brother in a sensuous way, she herself living her own Elektra symbolism through Oscar. Anyway, as Oscar enters the head of Alex, the rule-free realm of the symbolic permits him to experience his fantasy of incest with his sister, turned mother (in a flash), turned sister... The morbid desire for fulfillment compels him to enter for a brief period into the aborted fetus his sister produced, even the split and murdered off component of his sister representing a possibly desired destiny. Truly the "come inside me" line almost in itself justifies choosing English as the primary language for this film, and the encapsulated space of his sister's uterus creates the holding environment for the engulfment to occur... attached at last; the most poignant moment is when the baby is still attached to his sister (or is it his mother?) by the umbilical cord and is brought to the nipple, which is the only element seen clearly (this was a very smart move, from all standpoints, as a baby's eyesight is 20/400 at birth). This moment brings to a close the consummation of Oscar's fantasy, and thus is reborn in a literal sense as well as through purposeful incestuous regression. The unity engendered and its inherent hope are fractured with the cutting of the cord, at which moment the baby immediately starts crying and is taken away, the promise of eternal bondage destroyed thus again, entering the void of an existence deprived of any enduring physical contact, regardless of how many times one reincarnates, even when one enacts their most basic forbidden wishes. On a more controversial note, perhaps Linda experienced the feeling of completeness in herself as well; her desire to possess the phallus of her brother/father becoming alive in a bizarre way. As a female entity she became whole by producing a phallus (satisfying the dispelled notion of "[...]envy"), and with a mind-twisting denouement she not only possesses but produces the familial phallus she so longed for, finding peace at last.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A movie unique and adventurous, yet a tad out there for my taste..
What could have been an absolute masterpiece from start to finish becomes a story that gains momentum, then bogs down once you get an understanding about where its headed. Read more
Published 21 days ago by Natja Kristy
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Very neat and artistic film, a unique perspective and interesting point of view!!!! I really think this film is fabulous.
Published 1 month ago by RBB.
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Not for everyone... DMT ?
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Awesome movie
Incredible movie. You have to watch this movie and travel along with the soul as it embarks on its journey once the body dies.
Published 2 months ago by Shayna
2.0 out of 5 stars
strobestrobestrobestrobestrobestrobe OH STOP IT.
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noe, 2009)
For the first hour of its ridiculous two-and-a-half-hour running time, Enter the Void is my favorite piece of Noe since Carne (with the... Read more
For the first hour of its ridiculous two-and-a-half-hour running time, Enter the Void is my favorite piece of Noe since Carne (with the... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Robert P. Beveridge
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Published 2 months ago by Neal Bryner
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this film is an invitation
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Published 2 months ago by David C. Baird
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Published 3 months ago by Anonymous
