Movie Review: ‘Enter The Void’ Is A Psychedelic Trip You Definitely Want To Take

“Enter the Void”, a 2009 English psychedelic thriller, is more of an intellectual exercise by Argentine filmmaker Gaspar Noe, made in the form of a cocktail of blood, sperm, and tears. The film takes the average movie-goer (who lives under the illusion of a sober disciplined world) on a different trip. Starring Nathaniel Brown, the film is an experiment where Gaspar Noe makes the audience experience the film from the first-person viewpoint of the character Oscar. Like his other movie “Irreversible”, “Enter the Void” is a cinematic experiment in which Gaspar Noe says he wanted to make the audience uneasy by putting them into the shoes of a young lad who immerses himself into potent psychedelic substances like DMT.

The film begins with a POV shot of Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) and his younger sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta). The brother-sister duo look out at the glittery city of Tokyo from the balcony of their small apartment as they chat. The storyline of the film appears to be a simple family drama—an American family consisting of father, mother, son, and daughter. The father and mother die in a car accident while the kids make a narrow escape. They promise to be there for each other, but the little girl is taken away to a foster home. As the young boy grows up, he is determined to bring back his sister. He sells drugs and even sleeps with his friend’s mother for the extra money. Imagining the whole story from the narrative of a typical Bollywood flick, it is supposed to be a flat melodrama (minus the drugs and sleeping with friend’s mother, which the Censor Board would have loved to chop off had it released here). But Gaspar Noe works his magic on the plot.

With long takes, incredible colour schemes and lighting, shaky camerawork, and, of course, the background score, the film makes it increasingly disturbing for the average audience to immerse into without feeling like they’re tripping. With the first-person viewpoint, Oscar’s perspective, the film provides a sort of spiritual journey, with ‘out of the body’ experiences through ambient look, feel, and sound. It’s no less than a dose of DMT.

The most interesting part of the storytelling is its disruptive narrative that does not follow a linear chronological order. Filled with flashbacks and flash forwards, the film reflects multiple journeys of the characters, all leading up to the main plotline. This shows a gradual shift in the character from an innocent teenager to a strong bold adult. “Enter the Void” is a cinematic experience.

Summing up my experience, “Enter the Void” is a must-watch for every audience craving an unusual cinematic trip with neon-lit long takes, and, whoever wants to explore blood, sperm, and tears with a dose of psychedelics.