Sundance 2010 Preview: ENTER THE VOID

If you don’t recognize the name Gaspar Noé, you probably have still seen his 2002   film IRREVERSIBLE.   If you haven’t seen IRREVERSIBLE, then you haven’t witnessed one of the most unnerving and remarkable achievements in recent, film history.   Say what you will about the subject matter of his previous feature film, Noé is a visionary when it comes to stylistic film making.   He returns to the feature film world with ENTER THE VOID, a film that is already creating controversy and being described as “stunning” and “ambitious.”

Official synopsis:

Visionary filmmaker Gaspar Noé’s reputation as a provocateur and master technician is sure to be solidified by Enter the Void, a cinematically audacious exploration of the connected nature of sex, drugs, life, and death.

Oscar’s a small-time drug dealer. One night he is caught in a police bust and shot. As he lies dying, his spirit, faithful to the promise he made his sister—that he would never abandon her—refuses to leave the world of the living. It wanders through the city, its visions growing ever more distorted and nightmarish. Past, present, and future merge in a hallucinatory maelstrom.

Words cannot describe the visually rich and assaulting epic tale of death and its aftermath of memories and spiritual travel that unfolds. Through sheer cinematic wizardry, Noé has created the equivalent of a mind-bending trip. The graphic sexual and violent content is integral to the ideas in the film but may prove shocking to some. Like life and death, Enter the Void at your own risk.

ENTER THE VOID is playing at the following times:

8:30 PM Fri, Jan 22 Library Center Theatre
5:30 PM Sat, Jan 23 Tower Theatre in Salt Lake City
8:30 AM Mon, Jan 25 Egyptian Theatre
8:30 PM Thu, Jan 28 Prospector Square Theatre

Stills: