Enter The Void review

Gaspar Noé’s latest onslaught of the senses will leave you feeling exhausted, exhilarated, nauseated and dirty, but this is a hallucinogenic trip like no other and one you’ve definitely got to see….

Young drug dealer Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) is gunned down by Japanese police in the toilets of seedy club The Void. Shot from Oscar’s perspective, we follow his semi-Buddhist post-mortem journey, in a spirit-like form floating over the neon-lit streets of Tokyo, and glimpse milestone events throughout his life. His drug dealing is to fund his reunion with sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta), who following a gruesome accident is separated from him as a child. Their intimate relationship introduces all kinds of incestual, Freudian connotation to the film, which deepen as we delve both through Oscar’s flashbacks and his birds eye view of Tokyo’s gritty underground.

It’s tempting at this point to try and theorise all of the ambiguous suggestions Noé makes in Enter The Void, but after hearing the director speak in a Q&A session after the film, it seems irrelevant. Noé is reluctant to respond in any detail to questions calling for explanations on feminist or religious readings of the film and simply compares it to a rollercoaster- he’s a man interested on taking audiences on thrilling journeys and will do whatever it takes to provoke raw, visceral emotion. Yes there are many explicit sexual scenes laced throughout the film, but this is just because Noé likes sex. He’s vague with most answers in fact, until the visual style and techniques used in the film are brought up. Clever camera use and CGI visual effects have us blinking with Oscar, seeing inside his head, flying the night skies of Tokyo, internally viewing penetration and even being reborn.   

If the director wants me to take the film for what it is I will. The strobe lighting, humming soundtrack and jarring kaleidoscopic colours and effects convincingly induce a drug state and create a spectacular and beautiful cinematic experience, pushing conventional film narrative parameters throughout. For this it is one of the best films of the year, and is certainly not to be missed.

Published on www.thefilmpilgrim.com