Enter the Void
Director: Gaspar Noé
Writer: Gaspar Noé, Lucile Hadzihalilovic
Cast: Paz de la Huerta, Nathaniel Brown, Cyril Roy, Olly Alexander, Masato Tanno, Ed Spear, Emily Alyn Lind, Jesse Kuhn
Seen on: 30.9.2024

Content Note: orientalism

Plot:
Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) and Linda (Paz de la Huerta) live in Tokyo where she makes money stripping and he deals drugs. After a frantic call from one of his clients, Oscar goes to meet him, only to encounter the police there and be shot. As he dies, his soul tries to find a way to stay, watching the aftermath of his death for a chance.

Enter the Void is the kind of film that will either pull you in or not. If it manages to do it, you will have quite a trip, albeit one that doesn’t go as deep as it thinks it does. If it doesn’t, you will be mostly weirded out and not much more.

Say what you will about Noé’s movies, but they are never standard fare. Enter the Void is no exception. And for what it’s worth, I found Enter the Void more engaging than Love, even if it does become a little fatuous at times but doesn’t seem to realize it. I’m pretty certain that the movie is rather convinced that it has something deep to say, but the depth gets often lost in the haze.

Hazy is probably one of the best words to describe the film, given that we see the movie entirely through Oscar’s eyes and he is pretty much either high or dead which does color his perception, the former very literally. I myself am not very adventurous when it comes to drugs and after having seen Enter the Void, I feel like I have experienced LSD in a way that is absolutely enough for me. I didn’t know much going into the film, so I assumed at first that it would be a good two hours of drug trip. When it wasn’t, I was relieved at first, but by the end, maybe a little more drug and a little less death would have been a fine thing, too.

I also kept considering why the film was set in Tokyo, given that Japanese people really don’t play any important part in it, and what it comes down to, is, I guess, racism. The neon colors, violence and spirituality that Europeans associate with Japan are just the perfect set-piece for the movie’s musings. It annoyed me as a white European, I can only imagine what it must be like for Japanese people.

On the plus side, Paz de la Huerta is amazing and a large reason of why I stuck with the film. And, to give credit where credit is due, I am usually really not one for movies you have to kind of sink into, to go with the flow, movies that are more experiences than stories. But Enter the Void did manage to keep my interest throughout and grabbed me despite myself. I guess that means that it is worth seeing, especially if you generally are into those kind of films.

Summarizing: Very much its own thing.