The clue is the copy of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Oscar, the protagonist of Enter the Void, has been reading this Buddhist account of the transmigration of the soul after deathand then he dies. The film accompanies him on his journey.
Director Gaspar Noe’s dark hallucinogenic odyssey across life and death is grounded in the psychedelic experience of Oscar and the squalor of Tokyo’s subculture of drug dealers and addicts. Enter the Void is one of those rare films shot from the protagonist’s point of view. Usually a recipe for self-conscious tedium, Enter the Void transcends the problem by transcending the protagonist’s body. For much of the movie Oscar’s consciousness is disembodied as he observes his body and the surroundings, recalls the past and endures demonic nightmares.
Enter the Void is brilliant in its computer-generated psychedelic trips (Oscar was already on a journey before his death) and its use of nocturnal Tokyo as a city alive and electric, a black-lit urban jungle of madness. Enter the Void is out on DVD and Blu-ray.
