Gasper Noe's "Enter the Void" Movie Review

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Without a doubt, Gasper Noe's stunningly eccentric film about the afterlife will remain in your psyche like a long lasting drug trip. Enter the Void simply is a film like no other. It is not only a film, but an experience that every movie-goer should see for both its visually striking presence and its daring narrative style which we are not typically accustomed to as an audience.

Enter the Void places the viewer into a psychedelic experience emphasizing a free-roaming sequencing camera that acts as the film's backbone. In an intense breaking down of chronological time, director Gasper Noe's breathtaking 'mise-en-scene' visuals and mesmerizing audio resembles the likelihood of symptoms of a state of drug nirvna.

The film opens with a schizophrenic credits sequence that sets the pace and feel for the entirety of the narrative. The last image of the opening credits leaves the viewer with the word "ENTER" and then jumps straight to a first person point-of-view shot of the film's protagonist, which is continually present, and seemingly, without cutting away. Our perspective even blinks, as would any human being if we could see the world in their eyes reflected through a camera lens.

Gasper Noe presents a story following a young drug dealer, Oscar, who proposes for his sister Linda to move in with him at his apartment in Tokyo city. After dealing with grievous tragedy in their past, both Oscar and Linda dwell on their strong bond after making a pact to never leave one another. This pact, however, would be short-lived as Noe has Oscar killed merely minutes into the film. Hereafter, Enter the Void shows an imagining that attempts to surmise the mysteries of what occurs after one's life has ended. The film follows Oscar's journey from life to a psychotomimetic drug-like trip where he floats above Tokyo's city, watching down bellow at the events after of his death.

Depressing - and down right extraordinarily bizarre at most times - you can't help but realize the absurdity of the plot itself. Enter the Void is one the most realistic, nonsensical, science-fiction film you could ever witness. It simply isn't just a movie. It is a one-of-a-kind trip into an uncertain atmosphere; a hallucinogenic experience that aims at reproducing a vision of the afterlife. Gaper Noe's vision of the afterlife idealizes moments of death and afterlife by comparing it to flying.

Much can be said about the comparison between Oscar's life before death as well as after it. In the beginning of the film - and in parts afterwards - Oscar's friend Alex discusses the religious understanding behind "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" which describes notions of reincarnation and an out of body presence. He explains to Oscar how the book describes theories of flying through space, travelling through light, and being present but not being able to interact. All of these ideas come to exist in the world after Oscar's death.

This is where Enter the Void becomes a unique and compelling piece of cinema. Noe's cinematography is unlike anything seen before, as his camera flies above Tokyo city, flies through walls and lights and can appear anywhere within a given moment. It is in this that the entire film seems like one string of consciousness, flowing as a single prolonged viewpoint without cutting away.

Aside from the outstanding cinematography, the involvement of its unique sound effects accompanies the hallucinogenic visuals which, combined, create for this drug tripping experience.

What is important to take into account is the comparison Noe makes between drug use (especially DMT) and visions of the afterlife. Before his death, Oscar is told of the effects of taking DMT to which it is explained to be similar to that of dying for what seems to be a lifetime, but in actuality, only lasts six minutes. Noe therefore distinguishes that Oscar merely seems to be tripping in an afterlife with symptoms of one big drug paradise. We can see instances in the film where there are clear similarities between the sonic and visual elements of tripping on DMT to being present in the afterlife.

However, the film's tenancy to alienate itself away from the idea that it is, in fact, a movie has its faults. The film is lengthy - running at about two and a half hours - and can be mentally exhausting to most people. For what it seems, Enter the Void uses a repetitive structure with its free-roaming camera flying around its universe without rules or conventions. This 'unrestrictiveness' can be tiring to audiences. It is not something people are used to by today's film standards. After Oscar had flown through several sources of light (described as portals that break up time and space) I, myself, found my mind dozing off. Additionally, Gasper Noe has been notorious for his over-fantisation of visually and sexually explicit content. Enter the Void certainly isn't for any youngsters. There are several points in the film where you feel as if you are invading characters' privacy as there seems to be an overarching obsession with sex. The unneccisary amount of focus on practices and visuals of sexual discourse seems to play off of Noe's potential ego for attempting to establish a different type of film and experience.

Although these can be the film's faults, it also contributes to its necessity for its contra-film drug trip experience. The length of the movie allows you to embrace yourself into the validity of escapism, where it can become easy to lose yourself in its spectacle. The unrestricted nature of the cinematography, visuals and sound is what essentially makes this film so fantastic. Although Gasper Noe certainly has egotistic tenancies, his creation of the afterlife establishes itself in the film world as being unique for the purpose of distancing it as a film; rather, it is a progression towards a movement that attempts at being much more.

After the conclusion,Enter the Void ends with words "THE VOID", which pieces together its title, with the movie's narrative placed at the center. This can symbolize for many things. Subtly, it may be in reference to Oscar's short and somewhat dismal life that we have entered for the duration of the film. The void here questions whether or not the audience should really care for Oscar, as he is not ideally the heroic protagonist we so commonly see in contemporary cinema.

However, aside from being a film about a prediction of the afterlife, where reincarnation seems to fuel Noe's theory, Enter the Void simply can be understood as the director's implication of a naive audience that has just merely experienced the ultimate trip themselves. The narrative only represents that of a man's death and quick transition into an unknown emptiness - his death which could, in real time, only of lasted that six seconds compared to the DMT trip. The similarity between symptoms of drug use and the afterlife imply that the entirety of the film is Oscar's transition into death where his psyche uses his experience with drugs and his understanding of the afterlife to make sense of it. The reason why people in Oscar's afterlife are overtly sexualized is because of his desire for companionship and love in life; after the tragic loss of his parents, Oscar lacks that companionship but finds it in his sister. His visions of an afterlife are haunted with his own personal feelings.

This is what Gasper Noe is trying to get at. His movie has essentially taken the viewer's time with a film that - aside from being a certain form of entertainment - represents a collaborative nothingness showcasing intense visuals and a sonic spectacle with the intention of placing them within this ultimate trip as Oscar did until his body shut down.

Let's be clear: Enter the Void is not about the story or its characters. If you get too hung up on the atypical plot or its repetitive nature, you will not be able to appreciate the film for what it is. Instead, it is about the viewer's personal immersive experience with Noe's cinematic techniques of representing a vision of the afterlife. A lot can be understood and taken from this film, thus leaving it up to the viewer to establish meaning from the absurdity and ambiguity of the narrative.

Enter the Void is courageous and daring, and this could be its problem. The deviant essence of the film presents itself as exhausting and, at times, unpleasant. The utilization of such distinguished cinematography, the plethora of sexual content, and the slowly paced avant-garde narrative will turn the unprepared off and consequently questions Gasper Noe's intentions for making such a film. We can recognize Enter the Void as both a work of art or an affirmation of tomfoolery on a naive audience. Either way, it is important to recognize his vision as a unique film that will remain in our mind in the afterlife of our viewing of it - and that doesn't have to be a bad thing.


"I wonder what Tokyo looks like from up there," Oscar says. "I don't," his sister responds, "I'd be scared; of dieing I guess."