Enter the Void 2009 Gaspar Noe

I love this poster.  I really do.  Unfortunately, it's the best thing about this movie.  Director Gaspar Noe's previous films, I Stand Alone and Irreversible were shocking and disturbing films about damaged people and the wreckage they caused in the lives of those unfortunate enough to be related to them, or even people unlucky enough to pass them on the street.  This one is something else entirely.

It's a grand statement about life, death, the whole ball of wax.  But it concerns marginalized people, so in that way it fits in with his previous films.  It also looks fantastic.  The problem is that in trying to explain what happens when we die, no one involved in the film thought it would be a good idea to make sure the audience didn't die of boredom.

The entire film is from the perspective of Oscar, a small time drug dealer in Tokyo, who's just been reunited with his long lost sister.  So it's sort of like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield.  Oscar looks in a mirror, and we get to see him, otherwise the whole movie is through his eyes or just behind his head.  That would be fine if Oscar was interesting.  But he's not. 



See?  It looks great, but it's interminable

 Then he dies.

I'm not giving anything away.  The point is to see what happens to our souls when we die.  Oscar's been reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead, so naturally the rest of the movie involves Oscar's spirit reliving his life and floating around Tokyo until he gets reincarnated.  In case you were wondering, he dies 28 minutes in to the movie.

But the movie's 2 hours and 23 minutes long.

Cue lots of swirling camera movements (he's a spirit!) in and out of buildings and around the streets of Tokyo.  Remember in Panic Room how the camera would swoop up and down between the floors of Jodie Foster's house and settle on either her or the crooks trying to get into said room?  It's like that.  Oscar's spirit swoops around and sees that everyone's sad, flashes back on his life, and swoops some more.  His sister is a stripper, so the swooping does sort of become a regular at the club where she works. 

All in all, there's lots of nudity, some nice camerawork, and the sets look fantastic, but it's really nothing more than an old Skinemax movie with delusions of grandeur.  Sorry, but it's true.