Enter the Void (2010)
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A young American drug dealer experiences a psychedelic journey through the streets of Tokyo after being fatally shot by the police.
The story
Set in the neon-lit nightclub environments of Tokyo, the story follows Oscar, a young American drug dealer who gets fatally shot by the police. However, Oscar continues to watch subsequent events during an out-of-body experience. The film is shot from a first-person viewpoint with extensive uses of long takes that float above the city streets. Oscar's soul rises from his body and goes in search of his sister, Linda, attempting to fulfill his promise to never leave her. The narrative explores their shared past and the circumstances leading to Oscar's death.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Oscar and Linda are siblings living in Tokyo; Oscar deals drugs while Linda works as a stripper. After Oscar smokes DMT, he is lured to a bar called "The Void" by his friend Victor. During a police raid, Oscar is shot in the chest. His soul rises, and he travels through Tokyo searching for Linda. The film uses non-chronological flashbacks to show their childhood, where their parents died in a car crash, and their subsequent lives. It reveals that Victor set up the raid because Oscar had sex with Victor's mother to fund Linda's plane ticket. Linda becomes pregnant and has an abortion. In the final sequences, Oscar observes various couples having sex in hotels, eventually entering Linda's head to witness her dream of his cremation. He then enters her body to witness the fertilization of her ovum. The film ends with the perspective of a baby being born.
- Original title
- Soudain le vide
- First release year
- 2010
- Runtime (minutes)
- 161
- Production countries
- France; Germany; Italy
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Gaspar Noé
- Writers
- Gaspar Noé · writer; Lucile Hadzihalilovic · writer
- Cast and characters
- Nathaniel Brown · Oscar; Paz de la Huerta · Linda; Cyril Roy · Alex; Ed Spear
- Genres
- surrealist art film; psychedelic melodrama; avant-garde; erotic drama; ghost film; supernatural film; psychological drama
- Themes
- emptiness; reincarnation; human experience; near-death experience; recreational drug use
- Tone and mood
- psychedelic; surrealist; hallucinatory; vertiginous; grimy
- Premise and plot tags
- out-of-body experience; hallucinogenic trip; first-person perspective; drug dealing; sibling bond
- Source material / true-story basis
- The Tibetan Book of the Dead
- Reception
- The critical response was sharply divided: positive reviews described the film as captivating and innovative, while negative reviews called it tedious and puerile. The film performed poorly at the box office.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 73%; Metacritic · score: 69 · scale: 100 · review count: 19 critics
- Production trivia
- Noé considered Irréversible a 'bank robbery' to finance Enter the Void.; The film was inspired by Robert Montgomery's 1947 film Lady in the Lake.; The visual style was influenced by the works of biologist Ernst Haeckel.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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