Enter the Void

Wow. Ok. That was...interesting. I'm not even sure how to get this started: do you want a plot synopses? My feelings on it? I know, let's start with a story. I was browsing for movies when I came upon the vibrant poster for this one. I quickly glanced through the details of the film but didn't recognize any of the actors, directors, and quite frankly, was about the bypass the movie altogether if it wasn't for a couple of user comments. One of them was akin to "slamming my senses" and I know that description can't be used too lightly very often. I watched a bit of the trailer - but not all of it, because there is no time in today's ADD world - and decided to give the movie a shot. At the very least, it promised interesting visuals. Little did I know what I was getting into. The one line plot description: a drug dealing teen in Japan is killed, after which he comes back as a ghost to watch over his sister.

Seems simple enough; for all I know I was going to be watching the sequel to Ghost Dad, minus the Cosby. Instead I get something that is almost unbearable to watch (as I'm sure Ghost Dad was) but has me thinking about constantly afterwards. In fact, the first night had me putting the movie on, looking at the runtime of two hours and forty one minutes, me shocked and worried, then turning the movie off after fifty minutes. The movie opens with the full credits, but flashing by you so quickly you may think you will develop epilepsy. There's lots of flashing lights and motion sickness inducing camera work here. Then the movie begins. What happened in those fifty minutes?

We're introduced to Oscar, the drug dealing teen, and his sister. They seem to be enjoying themselves in Japan in his apartment, when his sister leaves for work and Oscar decides to get high. On what, I'm not sure. They talk about this drug that is so apparently fantastic that it emulates death: you'll see the greatest show in the brief moments before your die, and you can reproduce this with the drug. Oscar takes the drug, but it just seems to put him to sleep and give him that "regular high" we see in movies all the time. He goes out with a friend, to drop off drugs, and is subsequently killed, but not before we get some more insight on the philosophies of death.

So when Oscar dies, the movie gets all crazy. I should point out that the entire first part of the film - nay, the entire film - is from the perspective of Oscar, whether it's in his human form or his out of body ghost. We slowly float above his dead body then begin moving across the city, seeking out the people he knew as they learn about his demise. We float through buildings, zoom in and back out, and all over. We examine objects of interest and move again. The special effects achievement here is the seamlessness of the spiritual travel, but what we really have is a ton of CGI. We're also treated to a ton of flashbacks, presumably, you're life flashing before your eyes. But what's really going on is the character development: we get to see how the two siblings grew up and why they are the way they are. Like a series of Lost episodes, the flashbacks don't seem to be in any coherent order until you're finished the movie and have the complete story. This takes us past the fifty minutes, of course.

The next night I would continue to watch the movie, although I was fully prepared to distract myself with laptop in hand. To talk more about the movie would be to discuss the end of the movie, so prepare yourself (I don't feel like it's really spoiling). The last hour of the film is like that incredibly long stretch of psychedelic imagery in 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you didn't get that, you won't get this (I didn't). As I interpret it, Oscar is learning about the things you can do in death: you can time travel through your memories, watching yourself and others. He can search beyond his memory; he can enter a living person's mind and experience what they are doing (which is always having sex in this film). But the camera moves so deliberately slowly you don't get any emotion out of it: Oscar is not enjoying it, he's not fearing it. He just is. You, the viewer, are left to fill in his emotion.

In fact, he goes exploring to such a degree that you end up with one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen on screen, and that part, I won't spoil for you. And as I watched, I came upon this incredibly disturbing (for different reasons) part where Oscar is resurrected. Indeed, they mention it at the beginning of the film as one of the paths death can take - the other is presumably what we are viewing. Since it's in first person perspective, you get this odd feeling. His sister looks at him and gets upset: something is not right with him; he doesn't speak but reaches out physically, creepily. It's not right because it's YOU who she is talking about now. It's like the viewer has been supplanted and reincarnated into Oscar's body, but you're just a poser. Then the camera fades back and black, showing that it was his sister's dream, that Oscar potentially created. Is dreaming a product of the dead? Is it a way to communicate with lost ones?

Enter the Void started and ended with it's partial title: the very last frame you see will be "Void" and I believe the very first one is "Enter." You come full circle here and have to interpret what you just saw. Was the entire movie a chronicle of his drug-induced trip? What seems like hours and days could be just a flash in real time. Or perhaps the last two hours of the film was his life flashing before his eyes; how long does it take to do that? Or even, you could say he was killed then reincarnated, as the film ends on conception. I'm not willing to take on just one explanation, but willing to accept and explore all of them.

I thought I hated the movie, but the way I'm feverishly writing about this suggests just the opposite. Bordering on pornographic at times, this is art, pure and simple. Many times throughout the film I kept thinking that I need to put on a Hollywood movie, with it's clear edges, flat characters and stories. This movie is blurry, confusing and thought-provoking. I took the roller coaster it was and survived to tell the tale, and I'm glad for it. As a film lover, you owe yourself the favour of watching these independent, weird movies on occasion. You don't have to like it. You don't have to hate it. This movie has taught me that I shouldn't be afraid to step out of the movie comfort zone.

Enter the Void