Enter the Void (2010)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Powerful

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

So i've never seen a Gasper Noe film, Irreversible turned me off because, surprise!, the 9 minute rape scene. Either way I wanted to check the talked about director out, despite some of the controversy and criticism of his "brutal" work. Well, I probably should have listened to the critics. This movie was striking at first, before wandering into an indulgent, redundant orgy of traumatic childhood memories and... literal orgies. I understand the artistic nature of the film, but I don't think it ever justified a 2 hours and 40 minute run time.

Gaspar Noe seeks to impress - and that he does. A sensory experience, mainly with flashing lights and bright colors - from the city, from the drug trips and from the strip clubs and motels the movie takes us to. It's a relatively simple story, once you remove the flash and ignore most of the resurrection/drug culture going on - which is fairly superficial anyway. The intensity of the emotions and experiences of the orphans is really what makes the movie worth watching for me - you can feel they've had a disturbing life - deep in your guts. Which then becomes sort of OK - as you see them coming to terms with death and what comes next - things happened as pretty much every character in the movie is broken - the trip somehow providing closure to all involved. After going through all of it, you might ask yourself if we really needed more than 2 hours to go through all of this. All part of the experience?

"Enter the Void" is the cinematic equivalent of an epileptic fit. Beginning with the opening credits, Argentinian director Gaspar Noé seeks to overwhelm us with frantic flickering and humming. Then we are thrown into the first-person perspective of Oscar, a drug dealer in Tokyo. But that doesn't last for long, because poor Oscar gets betrayed by a friend and ambushed by the police. He flees to the toilet of the eponymous bar "The Void", where he gets shot. From this point on, the camera represents Oscar's soul, whirling through Tokyo and waiting for some kind of redemption or resurrection.When you watch "Enter the Void", you might be tricked into thinking it is art. But actually, it is the exact opposite: It is trash masquerading as art. Behind its flashy façade, there is not much to be said about the substance of this movie. Noé focuses on one single gimmick and does it to death until the audience is frustrated, nauseated or (in my case) bored. Don't get me wrong. Of course it can be interesting to challenge and even torment the audience of a movie. Look at Lars von Trier's work, or Nicolas Winding Refn's "Only God Forgives". Although "Only God Forgives" is deeply flawed, at least it has some kind of mystery to it, whereas "Enter the Void" is literally devoid of any meaning. Its style is one-sided and its story shockingly trivial.There are some redeeming factors. The sex scenes feel sensual and real in a way the rest of the movie doesn't. An incestuous relationship between Oscar and his sister Linda is frequently hinted at, which gives "Enter the Void" an emotional center, albeit a very blurred one. If you just want a different or extreme experience, you might enjoy Noé's visual orgy. But if you expect a finely nuanced and truly artistic movie, don't bother with this one.

I'm giving it a 7 only because I'm crazy for the editing, music, and message.The movie itself got very repetitive with 15 minutes dedicated at the end to watching people have sex, and that's it.Besides that, the majority of the time you're just hearing the main character's sister whine and cry, that's it. Granted, she has a terrible life and plenty of reason to cry but the run of the movie has this tendency to show you the same scenes multiple times. If we were saved from watching rerun sex-scenes and their parents die (4+ times) the movie would be about 1/3 of its actual run time.*spoiler* He likes to watch his sister have A LOT of sex (when she's not crying, she's banging), I wouldn't be spending my afterlife like that but that's just me.