MovieChat Forums > Enter the Void (2010) Discussion > Admired, but also disappointed.

Admired, but also disappointed.

posted 9 years ago by waxworker
2 replies | jump to latest

Artistically and cinematically, this is the most unusual movie I have ever seen, one which I have tremendous respect for. I feel guilty in some ways for what I'm about to say, but I have to admit I allowed myself to become so emotionally involved with the movie that I actually feel greatly disappointed by the premise. Before I say what that is, I quote from Wikipedia on the movie's theme:

The cinematic experience itself is the main focus of the film, but there is also a central theme of emptiness. Noé describes the film's subject as "the sentimentality of mammals and the shimmering vacuity of the human experience."[2] The dramaturgy after Oscar has been shot is loosely based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and ends with the spirit's search for a way to reincarnate.[4] The director, who opposes all religious beliefs, says that "the whole movie is a dream of someone who read The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and heard about it before being [shot by a gun]. It's not the story of someone who dies, flies and is reincarnated, it's the story of someone who is stoned when he gets shot and who has an intonation of his own dream."[5] Noé describes the ending of the film as Oscar's recollection of "the most traumatic moment of his life ? his own birth".[6] The director also leaves open the possibility that Oscar's life starts over again in an endless loop, due to the human brain's perception of time.[3]

I admit to feeling somewhat stupid that I did not consider that the entire sequence of events in the movie might have been nothing more than a trip or a dream. I allowed myself the fancy of thinking that Oscar was really discorporate and was experiencing all of these events. To discover that the movie was not an affirmation of the spirit world and reincarnation but in fact a denial of it I admit is tremendously disappointing to me. As I stated above, I feel guilty for making that review because I am fully aware of what the director was actually saying and his bold and admirable use of the art form in saying so.

That said, Enter the Void was a truly unique and enigmatic look at the issue of suffering, dying, and the seeming need we all have to continue living after death. Frankly, and immaturely, I find myself wishing that Gaspar Noe would do a sequel and tell us exactly what actually happened to Oscar and the other characters.

[–] bobtnelis 8 years ago

There is a lot of contradiction and confusion in your analysis. Stating opposition to all religious beliefs is one thing, actually being opposed is an impossibility. Where you state that Noè could possibly be basing the sequence of events on how the human brain perceives time, I would argue that is actually a religious belief of sorts. I would consider science a form of religion in matters like this.

As energy cannot be created nor destroyed I would argue what most religions call the soul would pass into another plane of existence. Given that possibility it would give rise to explain the somewhat nonlinear sequence of scenes after Oscar's death.

[–] I_Created_U 8 years ago

With all due respect, I see more confusion and contradiction in your post than in the one you're answering to.

This is not OP's analysis but rather a copy-paste of the director's words from wikipedia, as to the meaning of his own film.

How is the way the brain interprets time a religious belief? You know we're not talking about time itself, but about its perception, right? And subjectivity, awareness, perception, the whole mind are nothing but a creation of the brain. Nothing religious about it, it is provable.

And how come you describe the soul in those terms and compare it to anything physical and perceivable as energy when its very definition entails immateriality and to be beyond space and time?

What does that mean: "Stating opposition to all religious beliefs is one thing, actually being opposed is an impossibility"? One can state opposition just like one can be opposed to every religion, i don't see the problem. I state my opposition, therefore I am opposed. No?

Sorry but OP makes more sense than you.

People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs