SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: Week 32 Discussion - Enter the Void

[europe1]

That's an odd thing to post. I didn't say anything about the style of the toilet.

Yeah but... it's related to what you said. "cramped and dirty toilet". The fact that the toilet-sink is so close to his head only makes the moment even more dirty and ignoble. Therefore, it's abnormal shape becomes relevant to assessing the situation.

You know stuff is off when we're talking about toilets!

 

[Significance Deficit]

Should've picked something from Noe that doesn't suck, like I Stand Alone.

 

[MusterX]

Yeah but... it's related to what you said. "cramped and dirty toilet". The fact that the toilet-sink is so close to his head only makes the moment even more dirty and ignoble. Therefore, it's abnormal shape becomes relevant to assessing the situation.

You know stuff is off when we're talking about toilets!

Heh, I just wanted to make sure you weren't making some false assumption that I have a thing about dirty Asians. When I first saw that scene I was really struck with disgust, no, it was Advanced disgust, but it had nothing to do with Asia or toilet styles. The way a betrayal, a drug deal, a dirty bathroom, and a murder is strung together in that scene is very visceral to me. Even as he lies dying, draped across that dirty toilet, he doesn't go out, he lingers and slowly, heartbeat by heartbeat he dies.

Forget about the rest of the movie, which I'm not defending. The way Oscar went from talking to his sister about the Book of the Dead in his apartment to dead in that bathroom 10 minutes later was a masterful series of events if you wanted to illustrate a dark end for a character. I wanted to look away. I'll even say this. If the movie had held up throughout to the level of that 10 minute sequence it would have been masterful.

 

[europe1]

Heh, I just wanted to make sure you weren't making some false assumption that I have a thing about dirty Asians.

The way a betrayal, a drug deal, a dirty bathroom, and a murder is strung together in that scene is very visceral to me. Even as he lies dying, draped across that dirty toilet, he doesn't go out, he lingers and slowly, heartbeat by heartbeat he dies.

Oh I definitively agree that that was the main thrust of the scene. I just highlighted the sordid toilet as some sort of cherry on top.

 

[Joseph Budden]

I thought it sucked pretty bad. I will bitch about why tomorrow when time is at liberty. But I basically just found it pretentious -- the movie not being engaging on the surface level or stating anything grand on the thematic level. The visuals did not carry it at all and bleed into those other issues as well. Unconventional does not equate with good. Yadadada.

Wtf Europe I thought youd like this film


You guys watching that good shit lately. Haven't seen this in about 7 years when it came out but remember being so mind fucked. Soon the Spring Breaker, Black Swan, and this thread will be reupped by me. Better late.....very late....than never

 

[MusterX]

Oh I definitively agree that that was the main thrust of the scene. I just highlighted the sordid toilet as some sort of cherry on top.

Noe let the movie go too long and the level of the story dropped off after Oscar died. The first sequence in Oscar's apartment to "The Void" was interesting and good watching. The problem is the movie went off the rails after that and then lingered for to long. I tend to agree with @shadow_priest_x that the film would have been better if it was about an hour shorter.

 

[DaDamn]

two things that stood out to me were:

after he dies and floats to see his sister, her phone is ringing but she doesn't answer. he then floats over Alex and you hear him telling the story. Oscar then floats back over his sis and you hear her say "oh, that was no one" then she fucks the dude. i was thinking holy shit, she don't give one fuck about her brother. then we see how the scene plays out.

when they pulled the cover back at the morgue i tried not to focus on the bullet hole. then, the camera spirals into the bullet hole. it made me uncomfortable and i liked it. it think it was the only time the camera made a natural spiral into one of the holes. the others he seemed to resist. like the dish with the aborted fetus or the gas burner on the stove. at this point he was not only moving through space but also time.

as far as the incest goes, you guys have to remember that they didn't grow up together. i thought maybe they haven't seen each other since they were kids. she seemed like maybe way more damaged goods then him. possible molestation, she was a stripper after all.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

* Interesting decision to set this thing in Tokyo. I was not expecting that. When I was a kid and really into martial arts, I thought for sure I would live in Japan one day. In fact, if you had asked me when I was like 11, I'd have told you I would go to Japan and join a ninja clan. As you might expect, that never happened. Actually, I'm not even sure I'd like to live in Japan anymore.

I wanted to see more of Tokyo, I hated the P.O.V. style of filming when Oscar and Alex were through Tokyo at the beginning. I wanted to see more of the scenery. That's a big part of why I like foreign movies, it's kind of like taking a mini-vacation sometimes.

I wanted to be a soldier... Predator made it look so cool, and I loved guns How times change...

* Speaking of Spring Breakers, I thought this film had some strong similarities on some fronts: The use of color as well as the use of editing to jump back and forth in time especially. In fact, I'd say you'd need to have some pretty strong reasoning if you actually liked this movie but you didn't like Spring Breakers (which of course I find to be a stronger film overall).

There weren't any mind-numbingly annoying characters in Enter The Void

The inclusion of multiple (hard) penis shots in Enter The Void, makes it's nudity artistic... also, glowing privates. Spring Breakers was filmed in more of a soft-core style. Nudity can be either lewd or artistic depending on the artists vision... Some people think "David" is lewd, it's an interesting subject and you're not wrong. What is art? That question will always be debated.

I'll forgive you for not remembering the main argument most of us made against Spring Breakers, as you're pick got destroyed that week so you were probably pissed off. Spring Breakers romanticized the lifestyle and failed to provide a concrete message. Enter The Void failed to deliver a message and narritive, but it didn't romanticize the drug-riddled night-club lifestyle. Dumb teens could conceivably watch Spring Breakers and ruin their lives partying too hard, few people if anyone are going to watch Enter The Void then run out and look for some DMT... Then again I could see teens and young adults watching Enter The Void and wanting to try DMT, LSD, GBH etc. But Enter The Void shows how dangerous those drugs can be, and right away they show how the drugs are already starting to drive Oscar crazy, so the message on the drug front was pretty clear to me. Gasper's take is "everyone should try it, but moderation is a necessity"

* What's the deal with pervy sis trying to mack on her bro? What was that even about? It was just something that was there with no real explanation. Just weirdness for weirdness sake.

@europe1 has an interesting take on that, which makes sense. To add to his:

Linda and Oscar formed an extremely close bond after their parents death, then when they were separated she became obsessed with Oscar, they both became obsessed with each other. They didn't see each and only conversed through letters... They viewed each other through nostalgic rose-coloured glasses. The fact that they shared such a close bond but weren't allowed to be together manifested itself in an ugly way. Those strong emotions they felt for each other, the pedestals they put each other on, it was all just a recipe for disaster... I'm guessing Linda was molested at some point too.


Gasper chose to film the movie symbolically, from Oscar's point of view but at one point the camera zooms into the back of Linda's head and a flashback of their childhood occurs, so some of the movie was filmed from her point of view. Considering the mammoth run time they could've fit in some more of Linda's back-story.

* Speaking of the boatload of weird sexual shit, this film is essentially the definition of gratuitous. The whole idea of the Love Hotel, and then its 15 minute graphic demonstration at the end of the film, didn't seem to really be there for any narrative reason. It was just there. This is the first Gaspar Noe film I've seen, but I already had heard some stuff about him. And what I heard basically made me think that the guy is obsessed with sex and sexuality and this film does nothing to make me think otherwise.

After Oscars death when the movie started to jump all over the place, the first flashback was showing how Oscar got into the Tokyo drug scene. It was Oscar in that place with the model village. Oscar talked about heaven and this big orgy... I can't remember exactly what he said, it didn't seem particularly relevant at the time, but the orgy ending was showing us the spiritual journey that Oscars soul was taking turning from corpse to spirit, before being reincarnated and coming back as Linda and Alex's baby.

The fact that it was so long and graphic definitely makes me think it was made that way for shock-factor, and not for some grand artistic vision. Then again his point could just be that we're a bunch of prudes (as a society) and all of it could just be an attempt to make people feel more comfortable about their sexuality, since many of us were/are raised with a "sex is a sin" mentality.

* I was pretty amazed by that one scene with the crying kid in the car. Scenes like that make me go, so how exactly did you direct that? Do you just say, "Okay, cry like a maniac even though you're not actually sad?" I dunno. Seems harder than it looks. I'll also say that it's borderline irresponsible to put a young kid in a movie like this. They're going to grow up and it may not be something that they actually want to be associated with.

It depends. If they were just normal kids then yes, it's questionable... One could argue that raising your kids with lies about sunshine and lollipops is irresponsible true though, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but "sugarcoating" everything is becoming a problem in modern society.

If the kids were already traumatized and acting from personal experience then it could be seen as therapeutic. The children were confronting their own fears and releasing pent-up emotional frustration through their acting.

Acting in general (regardless of age) is irresponsible. You're basically trying to convince yourself that you're someone else. Ideally you want to literally become the character you play... that's not the least bit healthy...

 

[HUNTERMANIA]

@BeardotheWeirdo Alien isn't a mind-numbingly annoying character in Spring Breakers - I mean, I guess he could annoy you and I can't argue with that, but it's actually a good character that represents a lot of the satire of the film.

I think I fucked up and missed the discussion of that movie, which I love.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

@BeardotheWeirdo Alien isn't a mind-numbingly annoying character in Spring Breakers - I mean, I guess he could annoy you and I can't argue with that, but it's actually a good character that represents a lot of the satire of the film.

I think I fucked up and missed the discussion of that movie, which I love.

Yeah, it's more of a personal thing in that instance.

The scene that made me hate the movie was when Alien was bragging about all his money and guns, and that was Shadow's favourite scene... That scene was integral to the movie, I understand it's relevance but nonetheless (for me) it was like listening to people drag their nails across a chalkboard. I just have no patience for people like that, and the fact that the girls could even pretend to like him in that instance...

I disliked all the characters, which I could overlook if there was a great message to the movie (like in "A Clockwork Orange" which also features a full cast of characters that I can't relate to) but there just wasn't.

@shadow_priest_x could've used your help that week, no one in the SMC liked Spring Breakers but him...

 

[dissolved]

OK, It's 2:15 am and I just finished watching it so I don't really have much time for a mega-post. Not a well-written one anyways.

Enter the void: Sex, drugs, and muddled EDM... mixed with some reincarnation, and incestuous love.

Like the rest of you I have mixed feelings towards the movie. My main complaint was the run time, and the actual story, or lack of one... The first 45 minutes were great then it just went downhill, slowly culminating in a boring ending. All the cool-angled symbolic shots were great early on, but by the end I was pretty damn sick of the movie dragging it's feet.

Enter The Void started with the ending so to add two hours of extremely slow-paced explanation made no sense.

The way it was filmed was pretty marvelous. The shoulder cam shots filmed from Oscars point of view while he walked through Tokyo with Alex told us that Oscar was the main character, this was important to establish since having a main character who dies so early on is very unusual... mainly because the whole movie is shown from Oscar's perspective.

I called it a Go-pro, but whatever it was, it was okay for most of the time, but at other times it distracted as Oscar became more cumbersome with simple tasks - like taking pills out of their package or answering his cell etc. So I had mixed feelings about it.

The shoulder cam was used exclusively until right before Oscars death. Immediately after Oscar is shot and killed the camera angle changes to an overhead view where it stays for the rest of the movie, well most of the rest. We were still watching from Oscars point of view as Oscar watched on from heaven. That's why Linda said the coma-version of Oscar wasn't her brother, and it's also why she felt like Oscar's spirit had been watching over her. He was watching over her, from heaven. He was reincarnated as the sperm that turned into the child that his sister gave birth to, fulfilling his promise to never leave her side.

I didn't get that much out of the sex ending, but I'll take your word for it lol. Makes sense I guess!

Much of it was filmed in a way that makes the viewer disoriented, hopefully giving the viewer a sort of contact high. I was already high so I can't comment on the effect the movie has on sober people, but I have to imagine it would be somewhat inebriating.

The car crash scene was filmed / cgi'd beautifully. Probably my second favourite (interior view) after the crash scene in Whiplash. I put about 30 seconds worth of thought into that so if I missed some other scenes, forgive me, but to chime in cause I always enjoy watching car crashes... even though I've been in a bunch of them, some which left me really banged up.

The crash scene was well done for sure.

Lots of circles, holes, and tubes were used to transition from scene to scene, and circles were shown in many of the hallucinations. This is probably symbolizing the inter-connectivity of life, the circular (infinite) pattern of reincarnation connecting all living beings together.

The ending was a recreation of Max's ascension to heaven shown through the model village, which Oscar was looking at earlier in the movie when he described his version of heaven. He wanted it to be like the model village, he would arrive, go to that neon building and participate in an orgy there. Their private parts wee glowing to signify the exchange of spirit, when you die you become a sperm (according to the movie) ... I wonder if the aborted fetus was also Oscar, in his souls first attempt to re-align it's life force with his sister.

I forgot about the abortion scene. The careless way they dug around in her with the instrument was unnerving and for me . . . did not appreciate. The actress definitely took on a whole other level of participation for that scene to take place. I can only hope the fetus wasn't real.

Regarding the fetus, I don't think it had anything to do with Oscar.

Overall, my rating is pretty much the same as Shadow's. Visually, artistically, it was a near masterpiece, but fuck... there wasn't nearly enough story to justify the run time, it should've been 90 minutes as others have said. And of course the main question, what was the point of it all?

Drugs are bad and reincarnation is good. Fair enough, but again, you can convey that message in 90 minutes.

Ditto.

Random thoughts:

- the hallucinations were very realistic looking, when he closed his eyes and saw the patterns and colours dancing around, but they were in super slow motion.

- When Oscar looked at himself in the mirror he didn't even look high... he was barely even in the movie, they could've found someone willing to get fucked up for the role.

True on both counts.

- Oscar didn't like the idea of reincarnation as it meant he was stuck on this shit-hole (earth) forever, ironically it allowed him to fulfill his promise to his sister.

- I liked how he fumbled trying to open the baggie. He could've ripped it open with his teeth, but that wouldn't have worked in first person point of view, and it wouldn't have added to the suspense. I doubt anyone predicted that Oscar would be shot through the door after that, it seemed like he was going to get away. It was a nice way to shock the viewer without it being too far-fetched. I once went to a Nine Inch Nails concert and it took me 45 minutes to get the stupid tiny baggie open in the dark, I didn't want to rip it and lose my tabs. They can be a real pain sometimes. He could've flushed the whole bag, it wasn't that big.

Haha, good points. Also lol at Nine Inch Nails - you're all into this culture dude! Were you ever into Ministry? I liked/like some of their stuff. I doubt it would be good to listen to Lava while on a hallucinogenic.

- This is the kind of movie that you want to see in the theatre. That reincarnation scene right after he died with the whole screen pulsating white with flashes of other colours in the background. Seeing it all on a big screen, while high would be an amazing experience. I think it was Shadow that said the long run time only makes sense if you're watching while tripping out, and I don't really know how else Gasper was able to justify his decision to make it so long, I think it was done for those tripping out at home, or in the theatre.

- One downside to filming from an overhead position was the lack of facial reaction shots. That's why it came as a huge surprise when Linda said she'd been feeling suicidal ever since her brothers passing. We hadn't seen her facial expressions so it was hard to gauge just how much people were bothered by Oscars death. We know his friend that set him up was devastated based on his reaction, which we could hear, and was partially portrayed through his flailing body as the cops dragged him away.

Good point on the facial expressions.

- Alex was carving I want 2 live into the post, and then it changed to I want 2 die a second later... not sure what that was about... Anyone?

That was weird. Also, was that a flashback? Was he seeing Oscar's ghost? It seemed to be all after the fact. That was a strange and creepy scene.

- Why do you think he included the sister-brother love relationship. She was sucking his ear, tried to get him to kiss her in that light shop, dressed half-naked, and during one scene Oscar sniffs her panties too so they were definitely more than just brother and sister, or wanted to be anyways.

- Was that his sister at the end? It was blurry but I think it was her and Alex was his father.

- I'd already seen Paz De La Huerta in The Editor, put out by the fine folks at Astron-6. She was pretty normal in that movie, but she does get naked in it once.

- I disagree with the movie's anti-abortion agenda.

I just skimmed the other posts for now, that's it for tonight.

Forgot about the panty-sniffing part.

Also, I've seen her before but don't remember the movie. I've always come close but never watched Nurse 3D but never did yet. Probably will have to check that one out. I see she's busy with work though, so that's good to see.

 

[dissolved]

BTW, for anyone who's up for it just do a Google Image search on Paz de la Huerta and it's pretty obvious that bitch is just totally wrecked in real life.

She's working lots though. I think some of the shots are just bad ones. Not sure how wrecked she really is.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

Ah yes... the incest.

Firstly, if we forget the sister-diddling for a while, did anyone else notice that Oscar seems to have similarly sexual fantasies about his mother? In his flashback with her, he sees her naked in the tub, her breast in full-view. Right after that, in a pool, with her bikini on. And lets not forget the doggy-fucking that he seemed to fascinated by.

So, what Oscar shows of his mother, is definitively tinted sexually. His strongest memories of her have something to do with sex. The guy is inordinately focused on the carnally alluring. I think that is rather revealing of his psyche, he's constantly pre-occupied with sex, even with his female family members. (or maybe this is more of an reflection of Gaspar than the character).

Maybe that was an attempt to show why they were both sexually maladjusted. They were so young in those bathtub scenes, no child would consciously remember that as a full grown adult, maybe that was a subconscious memory, it was symbolism designed to show why they both had trouble separating love and lust. Because they were raised in a sexual environment... also the trauma and shared experience made them unable to relate to anyone except each other.

I agree with your assessment though. I can't see any other explanation. I added some minor details in another post

I don't know if you can say he's constantly pre-occupied with sex though. Did he even hit on any girls in the movie? IIRC he didn't even look at the other girls in the strip club...

 

[dissolved]

Continuing on this theme, I don't think we're supposed to interpet the sex as a healing factor just based on how lewd and lurid on it's. It lacks the personal touch, the intimacy that can come with sex that can be healing. They are just bodies going at it ad infitum. For a "healing part" to be involved, we need something more emotional or psychological to cling to, where the healing can take place and foster.

Though that might be theoretically true, I'm not sure Gaspar Noe agrees. Some see lust as love, juvenile as that might be. He did, after all, call the it the LOVE hotel not LUST hotel. Who knows though.

Got to love how those floor-bound toilets just added to the sordidness. Wouldn't have been so dirty or undignifying if it had been a Western-styled toilet.

When he was scraping the pills off the floor around it I could just imagine the filth he was messing about it.

Haha. I have to admit that had I thought of that while watching the film I'd probably have enjoyed it more.

I was a bit disappointed to see his face in the mirror because from behind he reminded me more of Joe. A little bit from the front too though.

I'm going to play the cynic here and just talk about it from an craftsmanship standpoint. It's kind of... cheap really. We -- as well-adjusted humans -- have been properly conditioned to react strongly to the dismay of a child. It hits us hard on a gut level. In that way, featuring a little girl hysterical with sadness is a really cheap and easy way of gaining our empathy.

I didn't like how they kept replaying it because was disturbing the first time around, then became annoying. Especially the part where she's being separated from Oscar and pulled into the elevator. Not a fan of kids screaming and crying if I don't have to listen to it.[/QUOTE]

 

[dissolved]

Yeah, it's more of a personal thing in that instance.

The scene that made me hate the movie was when Alien was bragging about all his money and guns, and that was Shadow's favourite scene... That scene was integral to the movie, I understand it's relevance but nonetheless (for me) it was like listening to people drag their nails across a chalkboard. I just have no patience for people like that, and the fact that the girls could even pretend to like him in that instance...

I disliked all the characters, which I could overlook if there was a great message to the movie (like in "A Clockwork Orange" which also features a full cast of characters that I can't relate to) but there just wasn't.

@shadow_priest_x could've used your help that week, no one in the SMC liked Spring Breakers but him...

I like Spring Breakers too. I gave it a high rating.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

I called it a Go-pro, but whatever it was, it was okay for most of the time, but at other times it distracted as Oscar became more cumbersome with simple tasks - like taking pills out of their package or answering his cell etc. So I had mixed feelings about it.

I think it was just done for symbolic reasons, and to add to the dizzying effect of it all... but I agree that it didn't always work

I didn't get that much out of the sex ending, but I'll take your word for it lol. Makes sense I guess!

I'm tempted to go back an rewatch that scene where Oscar describes the orgy in heaven, but it took place at the same hotel. The graphics at the start of that sequence where it pans up the front of the hotel love, it's clearly CGI and the orgy scene was shot through a hazy coloured filter, which symbolized something different... I took it as another realm, heaven.

I forgot about the abortion scene. The careless way they dug around in her with the instrument was unnerving and for me . . . did not appreciate. The actress definitely took on a whole other level of participation for that scene to take place. I can only hope the fetus wasn't real.

That was the most disturbing scene imo, by far. I don't know what it looks like when they perform an abortion but I doubt it's that horrifying. Also Europe1 brought up the size of the fetus, it did look to advanced for the abortion stage. I definitely think that that scene coupled with the reincarnation theme show that Gasper wanted to make an anti-abortion message.

Even the two main characters who were disturbed orphans found peace ans stability at the end.

Regarding the fetus, I don't think it had anything to do with Oscar.

I'm iffy about that part, but if Oscar came back as her and Alex's baby, then it's conceivable that the aborted fetus was also Oscar souls. It would also explain why that scene ended with the camera spiralling into the aborted fetus...

Haha, good points. Also lol at Nine Inch Nails - you're all into this culture dude! Were you ever into Ministry? I liked/like some of their stuff. I doubt it would be good to listen to Lava while on a hallucinogenic.

I was never a big Ministry fan, but I had Psalm 69, and I love their cover of Supernaut (1000 homo DJ's) is pretty much Ministry.

The craziest trip I ever went on was at a Marilyn Manson concert in 1995, I was only 15 and I got some really powerful acid and smoked a bunch of weed and I was seeing all sorts of things. Manson painted his body the same colour as the smoke from the smoke machine (with tinges of other colours mixed in), when he danced in the strobe light he looked like a cartoon character, I'm sure he planned it that way. What a night that was.

That was weird. Also, was that a flashback? Was he seeing Oscar's ghost? It seemed to be all after the fact. That was a strange and creepy scene.

I'm not even sure who it was that approached Alex but it was filmed in first person so I think he was seeing Oscar's ghost. Perhaps he was depressed and Oscars soul/ghost whatever visited him and told him that Linda now wanted to be with him so he stopped being depressed and was now optimistic.

Forgot about the panty-sniffing part.

The way he watched her stripping too... He didn't even look at the other girls, apart from the one time when the other girl was sucking on his sisters tits. He could've surely banged one of the other strippers if he tried also.

Also, I've seen her before but don't remember the movie. I've always come close but never watched Nurse 3D but never did yet. Probably will have to check that one out. I see she's busy with work though, so that's good to see.

That does look interesting.

According to her imdb page she's been acting since she was four, and she loves punk rock. Her mothers job is teaching birth-control in third world countries. She was raised in Soho in the 1980s in an apartment beneath that of hard-partying art dealer Larry Gagosian, whose hot tub often leaked into her family's place.

I don't think she's a mess, she's just a quirky girl who doesn't think much of standard conventions.

 

[Guestx]

I don't know what kind of coverage you guys get in Americaland, but the most surprising thing I've found on Netflix was probably The Daughter of Dawn, a 1920 film soley about Native Americans. It only has around 150 ratings on IMDB. How the hell that movie ended up there I'd like to know, especially since Viking Netflix features only a few films from before the 80's to begin with.

Frankly, I've been pretty disappointed with Netflix's streaming options for a while now. When I think of a movie I want to watch, they almost never have it on there. And whenever they add new stuff, it's rarely stuff that I'm hyped to see.

It's better for documentaries than for narrative films, I think. But even then their catalog isn't great.

See, I think it's here where the movies biggest and most fundamental flaw lies.

Why were we shown those endless shots of psychedelic lightning, trauma and gratuitous nudity? Why the glacial pace and endless running time? Why did the director chose to do his film like this instead of in some other manner.

Enter the Void is, at it's most basic, a mood piece. The narrative is incredibly sparse. Mostly of it's run-time is just an attempt to enthrall you with the sort of atmosphere it tries to set. It tries to lull you into a special sort of consciousness. You are supposed to float along with the movie, subsumed in it, engage with it on an emotional level. It's not about thinking conciously, it's about flying along on this drug-induced ride, experience it with raw emotions and sensory stimulation. Your ordinary mental faculties are not supposed to be alert during the film.

The movie absolutely failed at this. The proof? Everyone is bitching about the running time. We all FELT how long that movie was. Nobody is writting about how the visuals enthralled them, submerged them into the movie, how they just floated along until the end. If the movie would have succeded in that goal, we wouldn't be bitching about how long it was. The very fact that we felt it drag is a testement to it's failure as a mood piece.

I agree with all of that. There have been films in the past where the narrative was either sparse or opaque, but they created a world that I simply enjoyed being in and so I enjoyed the experience of watching the movie. Noe could've done the same thing here but he would've had to create a different world with different characters and taken me on a different journey. I simply was not all that interested in THIS journey.

With the same cinematography + music selections + location but a different script--even a different script that had a comparably loose narrative--I'm sure I could've gotten more enjoyment out of the whole thing. But watching a bunch of druggy people go through their broken lives and seeing a bunch of people fucking just doesn't do it for me.

What was fascinating to me was how lascivious almost all of those sex scenes where filmed. The composition was made so to focus more on the carnal, salacious aspects of it. Excluding the final fuck, there was little-to-no-kissing involved, no intimacy so to say. The participants where often positioned so that their bodies where apart except at the loins. And there was a definitive focus on the constant moaning of the female partners.

All of this works to focus on the more lewd, bodily (mechanical even) part of sex -- rather than the romantic or passionate part. I wonder if this is just Gaspar's personal pet-peeves or if he meant this composition as to say something about the main-character's psyche. Why is he so thoroughly and squarely focused on sex at it's most primal, animal-like? Is he fundamentally maladjusted? Did the death of his family and his relationship to his sister halt him from developing more healthy, wholesome attitudes towards sex? Did his trauma narrow his focus on sex to only the lurid parts of it? His sister does, after all, seem to share this sensebility.

EDIT: And to add to this -- almost all the sex-scenes where of a perverted nature. The strippers having sex with their customers. Oscar banging his friends mother. The incest. And so on. All the sex seems to be illicit or immoral somehow.

I think Noe is probably just a creepy dude who is obsessed with the shit. To quote again from the Wikipedia entry referenced in the OP:

His work has been strongly associated with a series of films defined as the cinéma du corps/cinema of the body, which according to Tim Palmer share an attenuated use of narrative, generally assaulting and often illegible cinematography, confrontational subject material, a treatment of sexual behavior as violent rather than mutually intimate, and a pervasive sense of social nihilism or despair.

Perhaps he really is trying to say something profound, but I get the sense that he is more just working out his own sexual impulses by putting staging them and putting them on screen.

 

[dissolved]

Frankly, I've been pretty disappointed with Netflix's streaming options for a while now. When I think of a movie I want to watch, they almost never have it on there. And whenever they add new stuff, it's rarely stuff that I'm hyped to see.

It's better for documentaries than for narrative films, I think. But even then their catalog isn't great.




I agree with all of that. There have been films in the past where the narrative was either sparse or opaque, but they created a world that I simply enjoyed being in and so I enjoyed the experience of watching the movie. Noe could've done the same thing here but he would've had to create a different world with different characters and taken me on a different journey. I simply was not all that interested in THIS journey.

With the same cinematography + music selections + location but a different script--even a different script that had a comparably loose narrative--I'm sure I could've gotten more enjoyment out of the whole thing. But watching a bunch of druggy people go through their broken lives and seeing a bunch of people fucking just doesn't do it for me.




I think Noe is probably just a creepy dude who is obsessed with the shit. To quote again from the Wikipedia entry referenced in the OP:

His work has been strongly associated with a series of films defined as the cinéma du corps/cinema of the body, which according to Tim Palmer share an attenuated use of narrative, generally assaulting and often illegible cinematography, confrontational subject material, a treatment of sexual behavior as violent rather than mutually intimate, and a pervasive sense of social nihilism or despair.

Perhaps he really is trying to say something profound, but I get the sense that he is more just working out his own sexual impulses by putting staging them and putting them on screen.

Netflix is great. But if you watch a lot of movies - which we do - then you've probably seen most of the good films. But, I find I'm most watching shows which they have quite a few of. And, I've heard that Canada Netflix doesn't have as lengthy a catalogue as American Netflix. It is quite diverse though. Just noticed they have both Witch and Bone Tomahawk on there now. So, they do get most good films.

 

[europe1]

Wtf Europe I thought youd like this film

I don't like films that rely on mood, dreamlogic or atmosphere as a principle. Those things are just methods. I like films that do that only if they actually manage to be good. Something like Cemetery Man or Valhalla Rising (despite it's contridictions) both has an immensly better atmosphere than this film and also has a hell of a lot more going on beneath their surface as well.

"oh, that was no one" then she fucks the dude

Well she probably thought it was something pedestrian -- and when your in the act of coitus you sort of have to act dismissive against disturbances just to keep the mood going. You don't really want to mention your brother to the guy whose plowing you.

as far as the incest goes, you guys have to remember that they didn't grow up together.

I read somewhere that siblings or other close-of-kin that do not actually grow up togheter and meet later in life are actually at risk towards developing strong attractions towards each other (maybe due to their similar genetics?) We have an automatic "do-not-fuck" detection built into us towards those we grow up with, but if we don't actually grow up with them then that does not operate.

Actually, I'm not even sure I'd like to live in Japan anymore.

I just don't understand how people would want to live in an area where you don't speak the native language.

The inclusion of multiple (hard) penis shots in Enter The Void, makes it's nudity artistic

That's (sadly) probably the case. Someone like Tinto Brass always got a lot more artistic credit then his fellow sexploitation directors simply becuse he was an equal-oppertunity nudist.

but it didn't romanticize the drug-riddled night-club lifestyle.

Well... it didn't "romanticize" it. But given the overaboundance of pornographic and exploitative imagery I'm sure there's a fair share of people that felt the allure of all this.

The thing is -- people don't always absord the message as they do the tone. It's the classic Scarface phenomenon. Scarface is an anti-crime film in its message yet everyone found Tony so cool that they all wanted to become criminals in-spite of that. Even that Alien halfwit showed that.

Then again his point could just be that we're a bunch of prudes (as a society) and all of it could just be an attempt to make people feel more comfortable about their sexuality, since many of us were/are raised with a "sex is a sin" mentality.

Hmm... I wouldn't sign off on that. If anything, I'd say that those films would make people more exploitative in their sexuality, as oppose to comfortable in it. All those sex scenes are very gratiutious and venal. It's more about making your sexuality more perverse rather than teaching you some sort of self-confidance in your sexuality and exploring it onwards on your own from there.

Acting in general (regardless of age) is irresponsible. You're basically trying to convince yourself that you're someone else

I think calling it irresponsible is rather harsh.

You're basically trying to convince yourself that you're someone else. Ideally you want to literally become the character you play... that's not the least bit healthy...

That's more of an specific thespian-technique. Far from everyone goes all-out method. Though there is a sort of fad and romanticization of it these days.

Hell, sometimes it's even the reverse. When Leone was filming For a Few Dollars More, for example, he reworked the Man-With-No-Names mannerisms so to more closely match those of Eastwood's. There, the character was modeled after the actor, not the actor after the character.

I don't know if you can say he's constantly pre-occupied with sex though. Did he even hit on any girls in the movie? IIRC he didn't even look at the other girls in the strip club...

I was more thinking of the fact that he and his buddies were constantly talking about sex. He also banged his friends mom. And also, even though he is a spirit, you sort of get the impression that the spirit watches what Oscar thought was important in-life, namely sex.

He did, after all, call the it the LOVE hotel not LUST hotel

I saw that more as a "Sexualization of the cute/intimate" sort of thing.

An ironic euphemism, if you will. It's like in those old Bond movies, where Bond and the Bond Girl talks about how much they "love" each other, when in fact it's pretty clear that they desire to bang like rabbits and assume complicated gymnastic positions as they do so. The "love" is just there as civility, like some sort of ironic wording that masks the lewd and therefore makes the lewd even more illicit.

I like Spring Breakers too. I gave it a high rating.

Yeah... but obviously we're all cruelly ostracizing you for liking it. Hence you arn't "truly" a part of the SMC. We can't really do that with Shadow_priest since he started this whole darn club to begin with. So, in "actuallity", only he liked Spring Breakers.

Perhaps he really is trying to say something profound, but I get the sense that he is more just working out his own sexual impulses by putting staging them and putting them on screen.

Yeah. And on this topic, a truly great filmmaker can work out his own sexual impulses in his films and still have enough artistic talent and craftsmanship to convey that in a pleasing manner. The sexuality of guys like David Cronenberg or Dario Argento are plastered all-over their freaking resume but they are good enough to make that appear intruging and artistic (EDIT: or gals like Lina Wertmuller for that manner, to pick a female example). Gaspar just doesn't have that "touch".

 

[Guestx]

Netflix is great. But if you watch a lot of movies - which we do - then you've probably seen most of the good films. But, I find I'm most watching shows which they have quite a few of. And, I've heard that Canada Netflix doesn't have as lengthy a catalogue as American Netflix. It is quite diverse though. Just noticed they have both Witch and Bone Tomahawk on there now. So, they do get most good films.

First off, really, you guys have Bone Tomahawk and The Witch? Interesting. American Netflix does not have those.

But more to your general point, I'd simply have to disagree that they get most good films. I mean, let me just name 5 good movies that I might at random want to watch:

Jaws
Winter's Bone
Whiplash
Pulp Fiction
Tron: Legacy

Okay, I made that list BEFORE checking Netflix. And now having checked it, only two of the films are available to stream: Jaws and Pulp Fiction.

Now let's narrow it down to five big films that were released last year:

Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
Ex Machina
Sicario
Jurassic World

Again, a random list that I made for before actually checking Netflix. And it turns out that none of those are currently available.

Now let's look at TV. Here's five shows that I've loved over the past handful of years:

Game of Thrones
Halt and Catch Fire
Hell on Wheels
Vikings
Silicon Valley

2 of 5. They have Halt and Hell on Wheels, both AMC properties. The rest are MIA.

So yeah, I'm not overly satisfied with Netflix's streaming offerings. Is it worth 10 bucks a month? Sure. But when I want to watch something specific, do I USUALLY have to go find it somewhere else? Yeah, I would say 80% of the time.