For the most part, the early looks at Gaspar Noé’s “Enter The Void” have been challenging. Set to LFO’s “Freak,” most spots have highlighted the assaulting opening credit sequence with only brief glimpses of the film itself. Thankfully, as the September release date draws near, IFC has released a trailer that still highlights the film’s ambitious vibe without leaving us in a drooling heap on the floor.
Not unlike the calmer French trailer for the film, the latest U.S. spot is probably the most comprehensive look at Noé’s film yet. The story centers on young Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a small-time drug dealer who promises to protect his little sister, a nightclub stripper (Paz de la Huerta), after the brutal death of their parents. One night, Oscar is caught up in a police bust and shot. Left for dead and remembering his promise to his sibling, he refuses to exit the world of the living. His spirit then wanders the city and begins to develop a distorted, nightmarish vision of a past, present and future milieu that creates a hallucinatory and violent pandemonium.
To say the film has been divisive would be an understatement. Its lengthy running time has put people off, while many feel the visual tricks (the entire thing is shot from the POV of Oscar) are a gimmick, glossing over an empty film. Hell, it has split our Playlist contributors with Sam C. Mac, our TIFF correspondent, loathing it while Robogeek caught up with it at SXSW earlier this year and liked it considerably better.
You will be able to judge for yourself when the film hits theaters and OnDemand via IFC on September 24th.