Enter the Void (2009)
Directed by Gaspar Noé
A psychedelic death trip through time and oblivion, Enter the Void is A Christmas Carol by way of Timothy Leary. Killed during a drug bust in grimy, day-glo Tokyo, Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) becomes a darting, unbodied spirit, the camera wheeling from his earthbound point of view to that of his drifting specter (or that of his dying thoughts). Both the Tibetan Book of the Dead and psychedelics get insinuated as guides to envisioning nonexistence—the sacred and the profane profoundly coupled, to the point that Enter the Void’s plot starts to smack of silliness: sleaze and the divine piled so high. (Oscar is a drug dealer, his sister a stripper; the film includes an abortion scene.) Noé’s remarkable, hypnotic visuals, however, keep the film (and Oscar) alive, buoyed—perhaps forever—upon a dazzling sea of dreams, movement, and memories. Jeremy Polacek (Apr 3, 4, midnight at the Nitehawk)