Have you ever woken from a strange dream and immediately tried to recall the details… but they just aren’t there? It is all just a fuzzy blur. That was my experience with Gaspar Noe’s “Enter the Void” — a film so trippy and hypnotic that, when I woke after the final credits, I was unclear as to my whereabouts. It is a film where time ceases to have literal meaning… where gravity and perspective are non-existent… where visuals numb the brain.
Oscar and Linda are adult siblings living in Tokyo. They live in a drug induced haze. He deals. She strips. But they are together and that makes them happy. In flashbacks, we see that, as very young children, they survived a violent car wreck which instantly killed their parents. So the two of them make a pact to never ever leave each other again.
One night, when called in by a friend, Oscar delivers some drugs to a local club called The Void. The police corner him in the bathroom as he hurriedly tries to flush the evidence away. A few screamed warnings and threats result in the cops shooting him through the door. He dies moments later. The rest of the film flows freely through time, like an out of body experience, as Oscar floats above the people and places of his life. He is observing the world he is no longer a part of.
Gaspar Noe’s previous film stands as an epic masterpiece. “Irreversible” (2003) is one of the most powerful films of all time, with an astonishing performance by Monica Bellucci. Based on that film, I am willing to give Noe an unlimited amount of leeway. And he needs all of that leeway here. “Enter the Void” is a fucking difficult film to like. I am not sure of the point. I am hesitant about its aesthetic beauty. I can’t wrap my brain around the story. Appreciating this film is tantamount to holding a bar of soap — try too hard and it will slip out of your grasp.
I was particularly struck by the courageous performance of Paz de la Huerta, a beautiful actress whose career I have been following since her small role in “The Cider House Rules” (1999). You may have recently seen her in the great HBO series, “Boardwalk Empire”. She is at the heart of this movie and elevates it from a ethereal mess to a satisfying whole.
I appreciate what Noe is trying to do more than what he actually accomplishes with the finished product. It is a brave and original work with ambitions far beyond what we are used to seeing. However, I cannot bring myself to offer a convincing recommendation. Quentin Tarantino believes this is one of the best films of 2010, additionally noting one of the greatest opening credits sequences of all time. I agree about the credits… I am in two minds about the rest of the movie.
