“Enter the Void” will be loathed by a lot of people. Dismissed as a pretentious stoner flick trying desperately to dazzle. And I won’t completely disagree. But French director Gaspar Noé’s third effort is also hard to ignore.
Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) is a young, soft-spoken American drug dealer who moves about almost exclusively in the nighttime of Tokyo’s neon jungle. Caught in the middle of a bad deal, he is singled out and shot to death by police. Oscar’s spirit leaves his body, and for the rest of film, floats through walls, soars above skyscrapers and powers into the minds of his still-living friends and relatives.
“Enter the Void” brims with gorgeous, psychedelic visuals and shocking depictions of horrific and taboo happenings, daring you to flinch. If you know anything about Gaspar Noé and his other films, “I Stand Alone” (1998) and “Irréversible” (2002), then you won’t be surprised by many of the interesting choices the director makes, like the one to shoot the entire film from the first person subjective point of view, or to shoot a pivotal sex scene, including ejaculation and fertilization, from inside the vagina.
But Noé’s approach, part shock-jock, part avant-garde artiste and part armchair philosopher, leaves him well short of the bar set by his idol, the great Stanley Kubrick. He’s far more interesting and worthy of serious analysis than your average Hollywood journeyman, but his juvenile philosophical ruminations and tiresome self-indulgence leave much to be desired.
“Enter the Void” is a personal picture, but it’s not a subtle one. And as much as it excites and fascinates technically, it frustrates and spins its tires intellectually. What insights does Oscar gather from his spiritual voyeurism other than the banal fact that everyone has problems? And the fantastic visceral effect of a realistic and cataclysmic car wreck is almost completely diluted by the third or fourth time we see it.
Compounding the problem are the performances. Though we rarely see the face of first time actor, Nathaniel Brown, his dialogue is delivered poorly to the point of distraction. And Paz de la Huerta, the often topless actress who plays his directionless sister, offers little more than a raspy monotone and a generous helping of eye candy.
Still, “Enter the Void” is undeniably innovative. The complex astral crane shots and pulsing computer-generated blooms of drug trip beauty are, pardon the pun, intoxicating. For the first 45 minutes this uncompromising and unique work approaches sublimity. And though it falls apart thereafter, “Enter the Void” packs enough imagination and excitement for any serious cinephile to take notice.
