Enter the Void

On reading through the London film festival listings, this film struck me as a must see. Halucinatory, non-linear, experimental cinema, shot from the perspective of a recently deceased drug dealer, as he follows the life of his stripper sister as she copes with his death. A new take on point of view camera work perhaps best termed DPOV.

I had not appreciated that this was a Gaspar Noe film until he turned up and introduced the film to the audience. I had never forgotten the experience of Irreversible, so felt I was in for something 'special'. He described the film as a bit of a guilty pleasure, an idea he had when he was much younger and had always wanted to bring to screen - the idea of giving viewers a taste of the mind experiencing a drug trip. He admitted to having experimented with drugs of all kinds during his youth in his open introduction, so this film comes from within (in more ways than one should all scenes make it on to dvd!).

It's certainly an original and trippy film, and in that sense must be seen as a success. The seedy Tokyo setting is perfect. It is, however, very long and rather irritating in places as the camera swoops repeatedly over the Tokyo streets as a continuous method of moving from scene to scene. And in my opinion it's excessively pornographic. Certainly a film you will want to talk about.