I love it when an artwork stops just being a static, solipsistic entity and becomes intermingled in ones consciousness through time, space and experience. Film is particularly good at this as of all the artistic mediums it most closely resembles how we perceive our living reality or at least our dreams. And perhaps no other film is better suited to becoming blurred with ones ‘real’ experiences than Gaspar Noe’s latest work, Enter the Void. And so it shall forever be associated in my mind with the gig I played the night after watching it, the massive first Hospitality at Brixton Academy.
Any film that comes with a warning sign is clearly worth watching. But this could also be a warning for a rave, no?
In fact, Noe’s films are probably the most ‘physical’ I can think of in modern cinema. They have to come with health warnings for chrissakes. His previous feature, Irreversible, became infamous for it’s endurance test quality. People would leave out of disgust but sometimes out of actually feeling sick. The vertiginous camera work and bowel-troubling soundtrack courtesy of Thomas Bangalter, coupled with the distressing narrative content, made for a film that actively challenged the audience not just in terms of taste or morality but in real world physical terms. And now Enter the Void continues many of the same themes, upping the ante in some areas. It’s a film ostensibly shot from a first person perspective, complete with the screen going black for a frame when the character blinks. Seeing this kind of dizzying camerwork is normally a turn off for me (like in the Bourne films) but here it never gets too messy or ‘shakycam’ style, it instead feels genuinely immersive, to me far more than Avatar did.
Noe seems almost completely uninterested in a ‘story’ here, you cannot judge this film on any of the normal standards of cinema. The acting and dialogue are barely passable but it’s beside the point. He’s going for experience and raw physical affect. So without a story, what do we get? A first person perspective of copious amounts of drug-taking, sex and death. A seemingly obvious move for a shock auteur and the film is destined to be a student digs favourite during late night smoking sessions. But what appeals to me is the overall experience, the cumulative affect of watching a 2.5 hour light and sound show, basking in the cgi trippiness and strobe imagery, losing oneself in the freefloating headfuck. (Or am I describing a night out at a gig?) As someone who’s never taken drugs, maybe this film is the closest I’ll get.
Watching it the night before Brixton was strangely apt. This was the first show we were doing there and the enormity of it felt like a leap into the unknown, the void. Thankfully it sold out and was one of the best shows I can think of. I couldn’t help but feel parallels with the film – there was just something about the epicness of both that seemed to rhyme. The colours and the lights and the sound and the space all seem mingled in my mind.
Spot the difference…
So whilst I can heartily recommend coming to the next Brixton Hospitality, I can’t unreservedly recommend watching Enter the Void. I think you’ll know whether it’s for you or not. At times it really drags and some of the dialogue makes you want to punch yourself but there are strange pleasures to be found amongst it all and no one can deny that it stands alone against everything else out there right now.
Brixton photos courtesy of Tom Chambers.
Tags: Brixton Academy, Enter the Void, Gaspar Noe, Hospitality
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by London Elektricity, High Contrast. High Contrast said: Enter the Academy – new blog post http://www.highlycontrasting.com/2010/09/30/enter-the-academy/ [...]
[...] Enter The Void – Ive already written about this here so I’ll just say this is the most fascinating and boring, original and inept [...]
old blog post, but ironically discovered your site today and then proceeded to watch enter the void (and found this POST in your blog just now after watching it).
“freefloating headfuck”