So when I was just a kid, I was afraid of dark. I used to sleep with my brother beside me, and he didn't like to have the lamp turned on when he was going to sleep. So to make everything fair to both of us, we put little lamp, which only has a dim light, and turned off the big lamp. And before I went to sleep, I loved to stare at the lamp while the sound from the radio filled the room. Then I was slowly sleeping like I was entering the world of a light.
This is what I think when I watched the film, ''Enter the Void". This movie, which was directed by Gaspar Noé, was released in Cannes film festival 2009. I have this movie in my harddisk from 2 years ago, and finally yesterday I watched it. After I watched this, my mind was just blown, and for some reason, I need about 15 minutes to get away from the so-called drugs effect. Well I never used any dangerous drugs before, so I don't really know whether it was what they called drugs-effect. But I was high like I was consuming one.
Well, this film is about Oscar, a drug-dealer, who was shot and the rest of the film was showing his experience after his spirit flew away from his dead body. The interesting part is that you got the chance to experience everything from Oscar's point of view! So basically if you never die before or you never used drugs before, you could know the feeling by seeing the whole process.
The film began when Oscar was still alive and he was talking, to his sister, Linda, about the airplane, and how does it feel to see whole Tokyo (well, the film was taking place in Tokyo) from up there. And he started talking about the new book his friend gave to him called The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Linda went out. And Oscar was lying down enjoying his new drugs. And you could see the hallucination occured after he smoked that drugs. I could look away from the computer screen because its iritating light, but I would not, because the experience was just too amazing. I wonder if that was really what you see when you were high on drugs!
Then his friend, Victor, called him, and asked him to deliver the drugs to the nearby club called, The Void. Before he went out, his friend Alex, who was lending him the Tibetan Book of The Dead, came to his apartment. Then both of them went to the club. On the way to the club, Alex told him about the content of the book. The book told you about what it feels like after you die, your spirit left your body, then your whole life flashes, your childhood, everything good and bad in your life, then you started to see nightmare, things you are afraid of. Then finally you could see people having sex, and you fly to one of the woman's womb and you are reincarnated.
When they reached the club, Alex waited for Oscar in front of the club, and he come inside only to get busted. Because Victor lied to him and trapped him. The polices came to the club, and Oscar hide on the bathrom, wanting to flush all the drugs he brought, but the police had already shot him. And he died there.
Then his spirit flown away and even he could see his body lying down there. Then the spirit of Oscar flown away looking for his sister, who was work in a strip club. After his sister being told that he's dead, he started to see his whole life. His parents were dead in a car accident. So he and his sister promised to never leave each other but the fact is that they were sent to the different foster home. Oscar, who has become adult, move to Japan, and was lucky enough to bring Linda to Japan with him after he managed to get all the money by being drug dealer.
All the flashback scene he saw finally leads him to the part when he died then he could see what happened after his death.
Linda was so frustrated after his death and after she got an abortion. Oscar's friends, Alex, who was afraid of being captured by the police, hide in somewhere in the street of Tokyo. Linda who was recently lives with Mario, decided to find Alex. Then both of them went to Love Hotel and making love. Then Oscar who was witnessing his sister and his friend, enter to his sister womb and become their newborn child.
End of the story.
For me the plot is okay! I mean, we could find this kind of story everywhere. What makes it sweet is that Oscar love his sister so much and made promise to never leave each other, and at the end of the story he's like fulfilling his promise that he came back again in different form, though you would probably forget everything after you were reincarnated, and I am not sure whether you could choose whose womb to enter.
And we could also see how the night life in Tokyo possibly is. Maybe for a girl like me who never get the chance to enjoy the world of neon-lit nightclub, would get the image of how it is. Plus how tough it is a life to be a drug dealer and a stripper!
What should be the central of the film might be the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Audience get to experience of how it might be when you're dead. You travel to the tunnel and you see the light in front of the tunnel. Then you're continuously falling so fast into the void, the nothingness and the emptiness, before you get to see the other scene. Your whole life flashes before your eye and you could witness everything you have done, and you feel. You probably see how cruel the world is, and how meaningless your life is, and though there are good things, the feeling of being away from the world probably better. And probably the last process might be the nightmare that you were reborn to the cruel life, and all the memory of what you have experienced before were gone. It could be really bad, but on the other hand, it could be good because you were given the other chance to have a new life. Maybe the meaning of the film is more than that, depends on how you see it.
Before the film came out in 2009, I have read part of the book in the library. I never get the chance to finish it, but thanks God, I could see the film, so at least I know the content of the book. I'd probably re-read the book if I got the chance.
What I like about this film is that because it was shot from a first-person point of view. Although it's not 3D, you'd probably feel how real the experience is. The cinematography is really good from this film. They use fisheye, and repeatedly, they showed a lamp, and before Oscar's spirit flown to the void, it will look around the place first the goes into the lamp really fast.
The hallucination effect and the trippy effect was also really cool! Never in my life I could see that kind of image even when I sleep. Although you might be a lil bit dizzy after the film, but it was a new experience for me, so I thought it was really good. The director said that in his youth, he had tried several hallucinogens, and he used his experience in this movie. Kinda cool, isn't it!
If you don't mind of the violence, many sex, and (not to mention abortion and repeatedly car accident) scene in this movie, and you dont easily get dizzy watching the camera moving up and down round and round, then you have to see this movie. Don't care whether you believe in reincarnation (because probably this movie is not only about reincarnation, but how beautiful and scarred it is to die), I think you have to try watching this once.
Good Night.
No comments:
Post a Comment