Enter the Void

Saw Enter the Void, a film based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the book which inspired Synecdoche New York and Jacob's Ladder, so I knew I was in for a bit of a ride. Sure enough, we start the film from the point of view of Oscar, a small-time drug-dealer, who's hallucinating DMT-bred anemones and starfish. We get a Cliffs Notes version of the Book of the Dead and he dies soon after, to begin his journey. From this point, the film floats figuratively and literally from character to character, "seeing" through the eyes of Oscar's soul. We mostly follow his stripper sister (who works at a club called "money, sex, power," (ie distraction, distraction, distraction,) which throbs with a cardiovascular beat.) and his druggy friends. There's a good dose of pain in the film. We witness the untimely and horrible death of his parents more than once. The pain is more poignant than punishing however and it left me feeling equal parts exhausted and soothed.

The visuals are a thing to behold. Neon, psychedelic, amorphous images fly by us as we drift through walls and over cities. When this was in theatres there was an epilepsy warning posted on the teller's booth. They were not joking. Apparently Irreversible, another film by the same director, has a club scene with similar visuals where the camera tilts, whorls, and slides dizzyingly. This film is less abrasive and strident than a lot of visual-centric films I've seen. It evokes David Lynch, but without the morbid intensity, dreamlike and only fleetingly nightmarish.

The film follows Oscar's soul right up until reincarnation (which I felt was slightly too long. After the psychedelics of the after-life what interest does mundane reality hold? This proves I care more about visuals than plot.) He also has a strange relationship with his sister (don't worry, it never gets full-blown incesty but it's a lot closer than me and my sister would be comfortable with.) Frustratingly, the copy of the film I got was slightly fuzzy, enough so that I'm certain I missed some important details (was that Victor in the elevator at the end?) The performances are great however, and for all the visuals the story unfolds quite naturally, in an almost pedestrian, kitchen-sink-ish way. Melodramatic but clumsy, kind of private and quite real-feeling. There's a good sense of voyeurism. A trip of a film which rises a bit above being a mere trip.