Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé, 2009)

[James]

No, I haven't seen this movie yet, but I'll likely be seeing The White Ribbon soon, making this my next most anticipated movie. What do we know about the movie? It is, of course, Noé's follow-up to the controversial Irréversible, a film which I ultimately liked a lot even if I thought it had some flaws. Like von Trier's Antichrist of this year, the movie was not afraid of not shying away from harsh and upsetting content in an effort to capture raw and very real emotion. I wasn't a fan of I Stand Alone, which I thought had a very misguided and too unsubtle direction, but as with Irréversible, it was the more avant-garde aspects of I Stand Alone, and also the avant-garde aspects of Irréversible that I liked most about the movies. The nearly ten-minute opening sequences (one, outside an apartment building and two, inside the club) are acrobatic and intense descents into Noé's hellish and unfortunate vision, both are among remarkable and among the best shots of the decade.

So why am I looking forward to Enter the Void so much?

Simply put, it's rumored to be purely avant-garde. Supposed shots featuring Noé's camera gliding over a neon-lit Tokyo sound too good to be true. The film was incomplete before being screen at Cannes, and many people hated it. After the premiere, Noé edited the movie for the Toronto Film Festival, but I have to highly doubt there is much change there.

Regardless, I'm very much looking forward to it and highly encourage your input. Please post all information about the movie here as it is revealed; I think there are some brief teasers out there that give us some sort of idea, but this one seems like it will be kept under wraps for a while.

[conspirator12]

I'm thrilled to see this movie. Here's a short interview Noe did which gives little new info but is amusing nevertheless: http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n9/htdoc ... oe-130.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

He also recently did an hour-long "director master class" with BFI that's kind of funny because he seems loaded (or maybe just tired...) the entire time. He talks about how when he was a kid, he saw his first porno and Salo on the same day. The latter was with his mom 8-)

[James]

I'm thrilled to see this movie. Here's a short interview Noe did which gives little new info but is amusing nevertheless: http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n9/htdoc ... oe-130.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

He also recently did an hour-long "director master class" with BFI that's kind of funny because he seems loaded (or maybe just tired...) the entire time. He talks about how when he was a kid, he saw his first porno and Salo on the same day. The latter was with his mom 8-)

Thanks for the interview. The black screen for a minute sounds interesting, I wonder how and if he changed it since Cannes.

[Gropius]

Regardless, I'm very much looking forward to it and highly encourage your input. Please post all information about the movie here as it is revealed; I think there are some brief teasers out there that give us some sort of idea, but this one seems like it will be kept under wraps for a while.

I saw this a couple of months ago at the London FF. Without going into the plot - which is arguably incidental, although it will put some viewers off - the film is almost certainly the most formally audacious thing that Noé has yet attempted. Think of the moments of floating spatial disorientation in Irréversible, but extended through the entire duration, with an additional layer of digital visual effects. In his intro, he spoke of wanting to recreate the sensation of adolescent drug experiences, and many critics will indeed dismiss much of the film as adolescent (gratuitous sex scenes, stoner Buddhism, etc.).

Although Enter the Void is avant-garde for a narrative feature, and the visceral pulsating colour/light show elements could be compared to Brakhage or Ken Jacobs's Nervous System, a closer point of reference would be the psychedelic climax of Kubrick's 2001, or those film-based simulator rides encountered in theme parks (roll up here for an out of body experience). In any case, this film will be a tough sell: I expect that experimental purists will find the whole thing a bit crass, while it will leave commercial audiences bewildered. Both parties will probably find aspects of the dialogue and characters tedious, for different reasons, but I still consider it essential viewing on visual grounds alone (much more so than Avatar).

[James]

Did Noé say anything about where he was going to tour the movie or if?

[franco]

He should cut the last 40 minutes off before touring it anywhere.

[conspirator12]

U.S. premiere is at Sundance. The cut appears to be 7 minutes shorter...

Edit: quote from a new Vice interview--"Enter The Void, which is due to be released in most countries in April, had two years of pre-production, a year of shooting, two years of post-production, so it took five years."

[Tom Hagen]

Saw this last night with one of it's first North American audiences at Sundance. I think I largely agree with what Gropius said above. To it, I will add a similar admonition to the one that Domino issued regarding Antichrist: if at all possible, pass up seeing this on demand and get out to a theater, if for Thomas Bangalter's sound work and the DMT trip alone.

This was genuinely audacious filmmaking. For all the "controversy," with one glaring exception --

SpoilerShow

the abortion sequence

-- I thought Noé steered clear of empty provocations. For all the homage that the film pays to the American avant garde and to Kubrick, I nevertheless felt that I was observing a director legitimately grappling with himself in an effort to discover new cinematic grammar. I'll be interested to read the reaction around these parts, especially from those who are far more versed in the avant garde tradition than I.

In the Q&A afterwards, Noé indicated that his next project will be 3D porn: "Not artistic. Actual porn."

[moviscop]

Hopefully real day to day artisans working in the porn field - Raging Stallion, Bjorn, whoever, name your pick -will have beaten the opportunistic Noe to the 3D gun. The thought that Noe is in any way the moral or aesthetic equal of genuine pornographers, or worse considers himself somehow morally superior to people working in a genuinely worthwhile, even if rarely inspired field of fringe cinema, fills me with contempt. And rage. He's "just" a hustler, but unlike the active men and women working in the sex industry who - for the most part - are genuinely serving us something worthwhile, Noe holds his "johns" in total contempt.

How can anyone really take this man and the poisonous dehumanized trash he churns out at all seriously as a human being?

I really hope your post was sarcastic, for your own credibility's sake.

Although I haven't seen "Enter the Void", if the sexual content of the film is in any way close to that of Irréversible then it is hardly pornographic. You write your post as if you are waiting for a money shot at the end of a Noé film. I hope you don't have your dick in hand while watching his films; being held in contempt as a "john" while you sit in your joy juice waiting to see how it all ends.

[bigP]

Although I haven't seen "Enter the Void", if the sexual content of the film is in any way close to that of Irréversible then it is hardly pornographic.

I've only dipped my toes into Noe's work but he has certainly ventured into more pornographic work in the past with his short Sodomites and his contribution to the portmanteau film Destricted, both of which I have seen and was left rather unimpressed with. Aside from possibly referencing Enter the Void, it's possible David was referring to work other than this and Irreversible.

[RodneyOz]

I thought it was fairly clear that David Hare was responding to this line:

<<In the Q&A afterwards, Noé indicated that his next project will be 3D porn: "Not artistic. Actual porn.">>

from the post immediately before his, by Tom Hagen. So even if Noe had only made g-rated films up till now (rather than films that DO contain sexual activity both simulated and unsimulated) it would still be valid.

[moviscop]

I understand what he was responding to, but the idea that his filmography up until know is just an appendage of a desire to make pornography doesn't make sense to me. I suppose my question is "how does Noé hold his audience in contempt?" I'm operating under the belief that he is not a pretentious artist who is manipulating his audience (save for his short film which is arguably artistic in nature). I find his work to be closer to von Trier's personally.

[tajmahal]

I find his work to be closer to von Trier's personally

Now that's a whole new argument in the making. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!

[Gropius]

I am simply gobsmacked that anyone on this board still takes him seriously. But there ya go.

It's possible to take a film seriously on formal/aesthetic grounds without taking it seriously politically/intellectually/philosophically - that was how I approached Enter the Void. The same principle applies to much 'cinephilic' appreciation of mainstream genre films.

[moviscop]

Well, I completely disagree with you on everything you have said about Noé, but you clearly have your mind made up. Your points are taken.

Here are some interesting quotes from him about his "pornographic melodrama".

Like I said, I haven't seen "Enter the Void" but I can feel the controversy brewing already. Lars von Trier and Baz Bamigboye had quite the run in over Antichrist at the Cannes press conference. Critics and viewers can debate each other back and forth on whether Antichrist was a shock film or legitimate art. It is all in the eye of the beholder I suppose. When I saw Irréversible I was moved, disturbed, and inspired. It was something I had not seen before. If I failed to call it a work of art I would be going against every feeling in my body during and after viewing that film.

As far as I'm concerned, Noé can do whatever the hell he wants with his film career. But, he has at least one masterpiece under his belt that is a true asset to French cinema.

[James]

I find it hard to believe David that you can't appreciate the more technical aspects of Noé's work: Benoît Debie's decade-topping cinematography and Noé's inventive avant-garde camera stunts.

[franco]

I actually found myself thoroughly engrossed throughout the first 2 hours of Enter the Void. It must be seen on a big screen with the biggest sound system, otherwise there really is no point. Unfortunately, the movie just keeps going on and on for the last 40 minutes repeating the same fucking things over and over again that the casual fun quickly turned into solid punishment.

Nevertheless, I cannot deny the thought that this is quite a unique film.

[James]

I'm hoping that this movie will come to the Nuart so I can see it on the big screen.

[colinr0380]

Hopefully real day to day artisans working in the porn field - Raging Stallion, Bjorn, whoever, name your pick -will have beaten the opportunistic Noe to the 3D gun.

You may be even more upset david hare that it looks like Tinto Brass might be contending for the title too!

I'm ambivalent about Noé. I still feel that the short Carne is his very best film, perhaps because it is so short that it doesn't outstay its welcome and has more of a forceful impact because of that. I found what could have been an incredibly moving dualistic ending to Seul Contre Tous (the tug of war between a minimal hope maintaining an imperfect relationship and the overwhelming rush towards nihilism destroying everything) rather undermined by the William Castle-esque 'shock break'.

I found Irreversible containing fascinating ideas about differences between people coming to a head through clashes of class, race, sexuality and gender. Though I'm still finding it difficult to come to a firm opinion about the way these sensitive topics were handled, often feeling simultaneously too broad and overly bluntly portrayed in its approach, and ethically muddled too. Often the film tips over into reductive approaches to the relationships between people that if taken as meant to be representative of archetypes of 'man', 'woman', 'Arab', 'intellectual' and so on (which I think they are meant to be), could be cause for anger from people who feel insulted by the work. Yet at the same time it is quite a forceful piece of work, and beautifully shot, scored and structured.

I'm torn between wondering whether Seul Contre Tous especially, but also Irreversible, are cautionary examples of what happens if an extreme right-winger's (verging on fascist, just keeping the impulses in check while they are frowned upon by society at large, which causes anger at the corruption of society as a whole) view of the world were actually true - that they get the horrifying out of control world they fear, and simultaneously yearn, for. Yet this runs the risk of being a simplistic piece of work that justifies many fears and prejudices at the same time, only more pronounced when you trade in Philippe Nahon in bitter conflict with the wife who 'tricked' him into marriage for the sexier Vincent Cassell and Monica Belluci pairing that invites a much greater (and more difficult) audience identification with the heroes, however flawed they are.

Personally I don't think he has made a big enough body of work to make a firm judgement of his qualities as a filmmaker yet. I'll be very interested to see Enter The Void though, which seems to magnify both the best and worst qualities of his previous work. Plus it will be interesting to see how he handles the post-death point of view camera (developing the technique from Irreversible) and the introduction of wanting to destroy a potential new life as a form of preparation for self destruction (seeming to return to Seul Contre Tous) .

[Tribe]

Like Colin, I'm back and forth about Noe also. I think he's a huckster (which is not necessarily always a bad thing), for one thing, and aside from shock value, I'm not sure if he's been able to display any imagination beyond that.

But still, I've found Carne and I Stand Alone absolutely fascinating, competently stylish and full of riveting performances, although I'm still not sure whether they are ultimately empty of that untangible something that might make them special movies. Irreversible is something of a different bag since it doesn't quite stand up to repeated viewing and at this point I'm convinced its just loud and flashy pyrotechniques with little else that warrants sitting through such punishment.

I'm still willing to give him and his work the benefit of the doubt.

[tenia]

I still believe that Irreversible is a very great movie about a couple tearing apart.
Of course, the 20 first minutes are shocking, but past that point, I only focused on the love story, and I think it's the best part of the movie. "Time destoys everything", all this.

But I don't like Gaspard Noe himself. I think he's just a very pretentious jerk. I've seen him in Paris dernière, explaining the making of his part in Destricted, it was ridiculous. Plus, the interview was made as he was shopping in a sex shop. Anyway.

[GringoTex]

Irreversible is an adolescent morality tale that offers up three sexual fantasies involving Monica Bellucci. Don’t do drugs and fool around on your girlfriend, fellas- she might get raped by a homosexual.

As for the mise-en-scene- Noe swings his camera from his dick for the entire movie. Except for the rape scene, where his dick magically disappears and the camera is left alone on the ground for some convenient and guiltless realism. You think you’ve been given a get-out-of-jail-free card because they bash the wrong guy’s head in at the beginning. It’s a special effects coup d’etat right up there with Independence Day.

This is one of the most monumentally stupid movies I have ever seen.

[Finch]

Ditto what david and Gringo said - Irreversible is a reprehensible piece of shit and if Enter The Void has more of the indefensible homophobia in it I'd appreciate if anyone who has seen Void can confirm, because if it does, Noe won't see a dime from me.

[James]

While I don't think Irreversible has the most thought out thesis of all films, I don't think that is where there is merit within the movie (I'm not a big fan of his other work). To simply say he "swings his camera from his dick" is a grossly uninformed criticism, as this is among the best camera work of the decade and if you need further proof, just watch the scene where the camera monitors the apartment complex. I'm looking forward to Enter the Void not because I expect anything formally interesting plotwise, but because from the things I've heard, Noé basically extends this style of camera work to full-length and adds many layers of effects on top (reports of a camera that sails through the sky past airplanes and over the neon-lit rooftops of Tokyo mystify and intrigue me).

In other words, I guess you might say I'm more of a Benoît Debie fan than a Gaspar Noé fan.

[James]

Opening credits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPxgi-PiNFE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;