Enter the Void
Positive 👍
Oh, "Enter the Void"—gastronomic mind-fuck of cinema by that bastard genius Gaspar Noé. This film doesn’t just screw with your senses; it digs into your brain, rearranges the furniture, sets everything on fire, and leaves you questioning your very existence. Let’s break down why this flick is so fucking brilliant, shall we?
First, if you’ve ever thought that movies should make you feel like you’re on an acid trip while simultaneously dealing with death, reincarnation, and the very meaning of existence—well, congratulations, because this is the cinematic punch to the face you've been waiting for. Noé takes you, the viewer, on this surreal odyssey through life, death, the afterlife, and all the in-between shit that happens while you're busy getting your head fucked with neon lights and endless tracking shots.
1. The Visual Assault:
Noé doesn’t give a flying fuck about your comfort, alright? Right from the start, the visual style smacks you in the face like a sack of bricks. The opening credits alone? They’re basically a seizure-inducing light show that screams, “Buckle the fuck up!” Every shot is designed to disorient you, with neon-soaked Tokyo streets, swirling hallucinogenic sequences, and these continuous, floating long takes. The camera literally becomes Oscar, the protagonist, after his death, drifting through walls, peering into memories, and sliding through this metaphysical landscape like an out-of-body perv.
And let's not forget the color palette! Jesus Christ, the colors in this movie are more alive than you are, popping with fluorescent neon pinks, greens, and blues, reflecting the drugged-out nightmare of Tokyo's underworld. It’s the equivalent of getting shot in the eyes by a kaleidoscope—and somehow, it makes sense, because Noé is showing you the world through a narcotic haze. He’s not letting you escape. You’re in this trip whether you like it or not, and there's no fucking exit sign.
2. The First-Person Perspective:
Talk about innovative. The movie is shot from Oscar’s point of view for a large portion of the runtime, and when it shifts, it's from this soul’s-eye-view looking down on everything like you’re some cosmic voyeur. You're trapped inside Oscar's head, hearing his breathing, his blinking, even the subtle shift in his perspective when he's on drugs. It’s claustrophobic as hell and sucks you into this spiral of death and rebirth like you’ve just taken DMT yourself.
When he dies (and don’t cry about spoilers, you dumbass, that happens early on), the perspective shifts to this trippy floating experience, where you're following his spirit as it revisits the world he left behind. It’s like you’re watching life from some ethereal GoPro attached to a ghost. What makes it more fucking brilliant is that it’s not just a gimmick—it serves the narrative's spiritual, transcendental arc. Life, death, rebirth—they all blend together into one giant, psychedelic cocktail of existential dread.
3. The Themes: Life, Death, Rebirth, and WTF is Reality:
Holy shit, where do we even start with the themes? Noé takes the Tibetan Book of the Dead and says, "Yeah, let's make this a fucking neon-lit nightmare!" The film is deeply influenced by Buddhist concepts of reincarnation and the cycle of life and death, but instead of giving you some peaceful, meditative journey, it’s more like getting repeatedly dunked in a vat of LSD-laced existentialist despair.
Oscar dies (bad news, right?), but his spirit doesn't just fuck off. Instead, he floats through the moments of his life and death, forced to relive his regrets, his shitty choices, and the traumas he inflicted on his sister. It’s like some karmic payback, with his spirit bouncing from one event to another like a pinball in a machine designed by the cosmic asshole himself. It's about the idea that your consciousness is this stubborn little shit that doesn't go away when your heart stops, and you're stuck replaying all your bullshit decisions like an eternal highlight reel.
4. The Audacity of Sound Design:
If the visuals didn’t make you want to puke (or at least trip balls), the sound design sure as hell will. It’s oppressive in all the right ways. Every single ambient noise is cranked up to make you hyper-aware of the environment—neon lights buzzing, people muttering in the background, the heartbeat-like thudding that merges with the soundtrack to keep you on edge. It’s like Noé decided that your ears should suffer as much as your eyes. And when you combine it with the insane score that pulses like it's been injected straight into your veins, you start to question whether you’re actually watching a movie or having a full-blown sensory breakdown.
5. It’s Not Just Style—There’s Fucking Substance, Too:
People love to bash Noé for being a provocateur, like all he cares about is shocking his audience. Well, guess what, assholes? "Enter the Void" is loaded with substance. Sure, it’s visually assaulting, but beneath the neon puke and mind-bending visuals, this movie is about the connection between life and death, guilt, and the inevitability of suffering. It’s a story about how no matter how much we try to escape our past, or how many drugs we take to obliterate our minds, we’re all stuck in this fucked-up cycle of actions and consequences. Oscar’s life wasn’t glamorous—it was shitty, raw, and tragic—and Noé forces you to sit with that uncomfortable truth for over two hours.
6. You’re Meant to Feel Like Shit—And That’s the Point:
"Enter the Void" isn’t meant to make you feel good, or to spoon-feed you answers, or even to tell a nice, cozy little story. It’s designed to grab you by the throat and demand you face the ugliest parts of existence. You’re supposed to walk out of this movie feeling like you just got dragged through hell by your eyeballs. And isn’t that what great art does? It challenges you, makes you think, makes you confront things you’d rather not.
This film doesn’t care about whether you "liked" it—it’s a bold, abrasive, unrelenting exploration of human consciousness and mortality. It’s fucking brilliant because it dares to be everything cinema usually isn’t: an unapologetic assault on your senses and soul. It’s raw, unfiltered, ugly, and yet, it’s transcendent in its own beautifully twisted way.
So yeah, "Enter the Void" is a goddamn masterpiece. Just don’t watch it if you’re looking for a fucking Disney flick.
Negative 👎
Oh fuck yes, let’s talk about Enter the Void! Gaspar Noé's neon-lit, self-indulgent fever dream that every wannabe film buff treats like it's the second coming of Kubrick, when really, it's just two-and-a-half hours of "What the fuck is even happening" with a side of "Oh great, another floating camera shot."
First of all, this movie thinks it’s so goddamn deep, but it's got all the intellectual depth of a stoner freshman in film school who's just discovered psychedelics and now wants to write his thesis on "like, man, what if death is just a trip, dude?" The plot? Barely existent. You've got some asshole named Oscar, who is apparently a drug dealer in Tokyo, and the genius idea here is that after he gets shot (in a shitty nightclub, by the way), the rest of the movie is told from his fucking spirit's point of view. Yeah, that’s right, you’re watching this dead fucker's spirit float through Tokyo, reliving memories and hovering over his sister’s life like some creepy-ass voyeuristic pervert. What an incredible concept... if you’re high as balls. For the rest of us, it’s like watching a 160-minute YouTube drone video while some guy behind you whispers about how he "totally saw the face of God once."
Let’s talk visuals, since that's the only thing anyone ever gives this movie credit for. Sure, the neon-soaked visuals are cool for like, 20 minutes. Yeah, it’s all saturated colors and flickering lights, and you get a few freaky scenes that might even be kinda impressive—if they didn’t drag on like a fucking acid trip that never ends. The problem is, once the initial "wow, Tokyo is so trippy" wears off, you’re left with nothing. It’s like staring at a lava lamp for hours—at some point, you realize you're just bored, but you're in too deep to look away because you keep thinking something profound might happen. Spoiler alert: It won’t.
And holy shit, the camera work. Who decided the "let’s-float-above-everything-like-we're-a-pigeon-on-shrooms" gimmick was a good idea? Look, I get it, Noé wanted to make you feel like you’re disembodied, but for fuck’s sake, just because you can make the camera float around like a ghost doesn't mean you should for two straight hours. At first, it’s like, “Oh, cool, we’re floating,” but then by the hundredth time you’re following a blurry ass hallway or watching the spirit of Oscar hovering over some random fucking toilet, you're just begging for someone to ground this shit. Please, I’m dying over here. Give me something to connect to. Or just kill the ghost. Please.
Speaking of which, the characters are about as engaging as a wet sponge. There’s Oscar, who’s just some douchebag drug dealer that we’re somehow supposed to feel sorry for after his pointless death. Then there’s his sister, Linda, who spends most of the movie either naked or sobbing, or both—because of course she does. Noé treats her like a fucking meat puppet for his artistic ambitions. Seriously, the only emotions these characters seem capable of are drugged-out stupor or trauma-induced breakdowns, and neither is interesting for two hours.
And let’s not forget the length. This film is fucking long. And when I say long, I mean painfully, excruciatingly drawn-out. It’s one thing to make an experimental film, but to stretch it to nearly three hours is like Noé saying, "Yeah, I know you’re suffering, but fuck you, you’re going to sit through it because it’s art." That’s just sadistic. It's like being held hostage by a pretentious art student who insists on explaining their vision for hours while you nod along politely, praying for a fire alarm to go off.
Now, here’s the thing—there are people who’ll tell you "Oh, but it’s about the experience, man, not the plot!" and to them, I say fuck right off. If you’re going to spend hours of my life on some grand visual spectacle, at least make me care about the story. Enter the Void fails miserably in this department. The plot is incoherent at best and nonexistent at worst. After Oscar gets shot, the narrative turns into a series of flashbacks and dream-like sequences that are so loosely connected you’ll be wondering if you’re watching someone’s hard drive melt. Sure, you can try to piece together the fragments, but when the puzzle is just a bunch of images of drugs, death, and sex, you start to wonder if it’s even worth trying.
Look, I get it, Gaspar Noé has a reputation for shock value and pushing boundaries, but this movie just reeks of pretension masquerading as enlightenment. It’s one of those films that people pretend to love because they think it makes them look smart or edgy, but really, it’s just 2 hours and 41 minutes of watching an art house director jerk off to his own aesthetic. At the end of the day, Enter the Void is a bloated, self-important mess that values style over substance to a degree that’s almost insulting.
So is it overrated? You bet your ass it is. This is a film that some people hype up because they think it makes them look avant-garde, but once you scratch beneath the surface, there’s nothing there. Just flashy visuals, shitty characters, and a plot that goes nowhere.