The Enter the Void experience

Enter the void is a 2009 arthouse film by Gaspar Noé who, in the past, made the disturbing film Irreversible. In this day and age the term "visionary director" is thrown around way too much, but trust me when I say Gaspar Noé is a true "visionary director". That said though, I say he specializes in movies you absolutely do not want to watch more than once. Irreversible made you the witness of a nightmarish event and the follow through. As shocking as that was, Enter the Void actually makes you experience it yourself. How? The entire movie is first person, usually with pure silence. It is you yourself and your "avatar" Oscar floating around experiencing twisted events around every corner.

The set up is simple. Oscar talking about how he's reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead and doing lots of DMT. The DMT of course leads to him massively tripping out and seeing bizarre hallucinations. Then some of the longest most strategic shots I've ever seen, likely with cuts, but I really couldn't tell when they were happening. He walks over to a place called The Void to make a drug deal, but it turns out it's a bust and he runs into a water closet (did I mention it happens in Tokyo?) and flushes the drugs. The police shoot him through the door and he falls dead. Suddenly the eyeline starts to move up to the ceiling and when it turns around and looks down to see his own dead body. The movie all goes from that with various bizarre flashbacks as well as checking on certain people in the moments following his death.

I planned to write a review of this movie before watching it but after watching it I didn't really know how. This is a hard movie to talk about. It is literally entirely muffled sounds and bizarre bright colors jammed into disturbing memories and scenes. The plot isn't terribly important either, this movie is in essence, an experience.

It's easy to dismiss this movie as a drug trip movie, and I feel bad that the main thing this movie will be used for is getting baked and watching it, but what I love about it are the various plausible interpretations. It really makes you think. Is the whole thing a drug trip or is it his life flashing before his eyes, or is it actually happening?

Overall, this is one of the most visually beautiful movies I've seen and I wish I had it on Bluray. It was a really amazing experience for the first 90 minutes or so, but the last 70 minutes (yeah, it's 161 minutes) just tend to get old. At that point, the novelty of floating through shocking images, just isn't shocking anymore and if they would have maybe cut out about 30 minutes of the hour of trippy images the movie would have worked better. Oh, by the way, there is a camera inside a vagina... just thought I'd throw that out there. Also I challenge you to find a better opening credits sequence than this...

Below is my spoilerified interpretation of the movie. Only read this if you don't plan to watch it or have already.

As a forward, DMT is released from the human brain during deep REM sleep and when the body dies. It gives VERY realistic hallucinations and some even say that alien abductions are actually DMT caused.

To me the second he is shot, the DMT starts releasing, and right away he starts having visions to help him sort out his thoughts (that is what DMT is mostly used for, very interesting drug). Ultimately, I would go as far as to say that the whole movie from the point of him getting shot on is all in his head, taking place in seconds but feeling like a very long time. First off the fundamental idea for the hallucination really meshes with the Tibetan Book of the Dead, in which the basic idea is to have experiences and then be reborn. Of course him having been reading the book it was fresh in his mind and thus influenced his experience psychologically, ultimately leading to him being reborn inside of his sister (hence the vagina cam I was talking about) and connecting to a sperm that enters the egg.

Ultimately I feel that it didn't actually happen and thus this movie is a bleak and cynical experience for me. Thankfully it remains open to interpretation, and that's why I feel so good about this movie.
Give it a watch if you are cool with prostitution, drugs and really special film making. If you are a casual movie watcher, or looking for something fun, just move along.