A week after the initial rush of watching Gaspar Noe's follow-up to 2002's infamous Irreversible, and I'm happy to report no symptoms of a comedown.
Enter the Void is a far better vehicle for Noe's brand of twirling visuals and echochamber audio. In Irreversible these flamboyances felt distracting; technical digressions that stole us away from the horror of the subject matter – it's notable that in that film's most frighteningly effective scene the camera fell still. In Enter the Void, we ARE the disembodied narrator: we live his fears, curiosities and oedipal desires.
The abridged story: Boy becomes drug dealer to pay for sister's plane ticket to perma-night Japan. Boy is shot dead in botched drugs raid. Boy becomes angel, observing sister's self-destructive grief.
With all its first-person death and despair and titillation, this is exploitation movie-making of the virtuoso kind. But it is also, at times, heart-rending, particularly in its depiction of the single event that drew Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) and Linda (Paz de la Huerta) into an unbreakable childhood embrace.
There's a womb-like tranquillity to Oscar's Angel-Vision: a kind of serene detachment, which makes his inability to intervene all the more poignant. Even when brother and sister were separated by 5000 miles, they knew they would see each other – one day, one day. But in death, Linda is tragically cut free of that shared umbilical. Death may have no dominion – but left behind on the mortal coil, how's she to know that?
Did we really need the Tibetan Book of the Dead subplot? It seems rather hokey. That Oscar's journey follows the chapters of the Book is a lot more interesting than mumbled, drug-fuelled dialogue detailing its content and meaning. It's a pity that Noe didn't let us make the connection by ourselves.
Some scenes fall disappointingly flat. Those involving Victor's (Olly Alexander from Bright Star) family, particularly, are jarringly unconvincing. It's as if Noe isn't comfortable directing petty domestic disputes because he has bigger fish perceptions to fry... Or more likely, it's because English is not his first language.
The film's "Love Hotel" climax may appear to labour its point through repetition; but then Enter the Void is a fresh look at the circles of life – the rhythms of corporeal existence; kill, cure, love, create – so perhaps we should just lie back and surrender and feel safe in the knowledge that we're witnessing the progress of a film-maker who will one day give the world a vital work of art. Just not quite yet.
Enter the Void is a far better vehicle for Noe's brand of twirling visuals and echochamber audio. In Irreversible these flamboyances felt distracting; technical digressions that stole us away from the horror of the subject matter – it's notable that in that film's most frighteningly effective scene the camera fell still. In Enter the Void, we ARE the disembodied narrator: we live his fears, curiosities and oedipal desires.
The abridged story: Boy becomes drug dealer to pay for sister's plane ticket to perma-night Japan. Boy is shot dead in botched drugs raid. Boy becomes angel, observing sister's self-destructive grief.
With all its first-person death and despair and titillation, this is exploitation movie-making of the virtuoso kind. But it is also, at times, heart-rending, particularly in its depiction of the single event that drew Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) and Linda (Paz de la Huerta) into an unbreakable childhood embrace.
There's a womb-like tranquillity to Oscar's Angel-Vision: a kind of serene detachment, which makes his inability to intervene all the more poignant. Even when brother and sister were separated by 5000 miles, they knew they would see each other – one day, one day. But in death, Linda is tragically cut free of that shared umbilical. Death may have no dominion – but left behind on the mortal coil, how's she to know that?
Did we really need the Tibetan Book of the Dead subplot? It seems rather hokey. That Oscar's journey follows the chapters of the Book is a lot more interesting than mumbled, drug-fuelled dialogue detailing its content and meaning. It's a pity that Noe didn't let us make the connection by ourselves.
Some scenes fall disappointingly flat. Those involving Victor's (Olly Alexander from Bright Star) family, particularly, are jarringly unconvincing. It's as if Noe isn't comfortable directing petty domestic disputes because he has bigger fish perceptions to fry... Or more likely, it's because English is not his first language.
The film's "Love Hotel" climax may appear to labour its point through repetition; but then Enter the Void is a fresh look at the circles of life – the rhythms of corporeal existence; kill, cure, love, create – so perhaps we should just lie back and surrender and feel safe in the knowledge that we're witnessing the progress of a film-maker who will one day give the world a vital work of art. Just not quite yet.