ENTER THE VOID EEN FILM VAN GASPAR NOÉ WILD BUNCH HAARLEMMERDIJK 159 - 1013 KH – AMSTERDAM WWW.WILDBUNCH.NL THE PUBLICITY COMPANY [email protected] ENTER THE VOID – GASPAR NOÉ PROJECT SUMMARY Een productie van WILD BUNCH, FIDÉLITÉ FILMS Taal ENGELS/JAPANS/FRANS Lengte 154 MINUTEN Genre PSYCHEDELIC MELODRAMA Land van herkomst FRANKRIJK Filmmaker GASPAR NOÉ Hoofdrollen NATHANIEL BROWN, PAZ DE LA HUERTA, CYRIL ROY, MASATO TANNO Release datum 23 SEPTEMBER 2010 Nominatie GOUDEN PALM – CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2009 Website WWW.ENTERTHEVOID-LEFILM.COM Kijkwijzer SYNOPSIS Oscar en zijn zus Linda wonen sinds kort in Tokyo. Oscar leeft van de inkomsten van kleine drugsdeals en Linda werkt als stripper in een nachtclub. Tijdens een inval van de politie wordt Oscar geraakt door een kogel. Hij ligt op sterven, maar zijn geest, die eveneens trouw is aan zijn belofte om zijn zus nooit achter te laten, weigert de wereld van de levenden te verlaten. Tijdens de dwaaltocht van zijn geest door de stad worden de visioenen steeds chaotischer en veranderen ze in een ware nachtmerrie. Het verleden, het heden en de toekomst vermengen zich in een hallucinogene draaikolk. CAST OSCAR NATHANIEL BROWN LINDA PAZ DE LA HUERTA ALEX CYRIL ROY LITTLE LINDA EMILY ALYN LIND LITTLE OSCAR JESSE KUHN VICTOR OLLY ALEXANDER MARIO MASATO TANNO BRUNO CARY HAYES SUZIE SARA STOCKBRIDGE SAKI SAKIKO FU KUHARA TITO NOBU IMAI CAROL EMI TAKEUCHI MOTHER JANICE SICOTTE-BELIVEAU FATHER SIMON CHAMBERLAND ENTER THE VOID – GASPAR NOÉ CREW DIRECTOR GASPAR NOÉ SCREENPLAY GASPAR NOÉ DP BENOÎT DEBIE ART SUPERVISOR MARC CARO VISUAL FX PIERRE BUFFIN EDITORS GASPAR NOÉ, MARC BOUCROT CAMERA GASPAR NOÉ SOUND EFFECTS THOMAS BANGALTER PRODUCERS VINCENT MARAVAL, OLIVIER DELBOSC, MARC MISSONNIER CO-PRODUCERS GASPAR NOÉ, PIERRE BUFFIN, AGNÈS B, PHILIPPE BOBER, VALERIO DE AOLIS, NICOLAS LECLERCQ PRODUCTION WILD BUNCH, FIDÉLITÉ FILMS CO-PRODUCTION LES CINÉMAS DE LA ZONE, BUF CO., LOVE STREAMS, ESSENTIEL FILMPRODUKTION, BIM DISTRIBUTION, PARANOID FILMS DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT “Making a film is difficult, but making a great film is an almost impossible task.” This quote from Spielberg is perhaps not completely accurate, but that’s how I remember it. However, some examples of great films do exist, including the film which had such an influence on my existence: 2001, A Space Odyssey. Without professing to be able to create such a masterpiece, trying to make a film that is, at the same time, a large-scale entertainment, suitable for adults and complex in cinematic terms, is one of the most exciting undertakings one could wish to tackle. And if one does not set out with the aim of making a great film, one can be sure that it will not turn out to be one. Few of the arts can satisfy man’s need to be uplifted as immediately as film. And none (except interactive video games) can yet reproduce the maelstrom of our states of perception and consciousness. In the past, certain films have tried to adopt the subjective point of view of the main character. ENTER THE VOID will try to improve upon its predecessors and accompany the hero just as much in his normal state of awareness as in his altered states: the state of alertness, the stream of consciousness, memories, dreams... The visions described in the script are inspired partly by the accounts of people who have had near- death experiences, who describe a tunnel of light, seeing their lives flashing past them and ‘astral’ visions, and partly by similar hallucinatory experiences obtained by consuming DMT, the molecule which the brain sometimes secretes at the moment of death and which, in small doses, enables us to dream at night. The film should sometimes scare the audience, make it cry and, as much as possible, hypnotize it. In recent years, films with labyrinthine structures have proved the audience’s ability to follow storylines in the form of a puzzle, and its desire to move away from linear narration. But a complex form where the content does not move the spectator in any way would only amount to mathematic virtuosity. Whereas this film is above all a melodrama: the universal melodrama of a young man who, after the brutal death of his parents, promises that he will protect his little sister no matter what and who, sensing that he himself is dying, fights desperately to keep his promise. A film where the life of one person is linked to the love he has for another human being. The reason for choosing the most modern areas of Tokyo as a setting is to further emphasize the fragility of the brother and sister by propelling them like two small balls in a giant pinball machine ENTER THE VOID – GASPAR NOÉ made up of black, white and fluorescent colors. My previous two films, which were far less ambitious, were once described by a critic as being like roller coasters playing with the most reptilian desires and fears of the spectator. enter the void, whose themes and artistic choices will be far more varied and colorful, should, if I succeed, be the Magic Mountain which I, as a spectator, dream of riding on. - Gaspar Noé INTERVIEW - GASPAR NOÉ Where did the inspiration for this project come from? I grew up with an atheist education, but towards the end of adolescence, when you start smoking joints, you also start asking yourself questions about death and the existence of an eventual afterworld. Even though I’ve never participated in any religious faith, I started to get interested in books to do with reincarnation, Life after Death by Raymond Moody in particular, and I had this whole crazy idea of what could happen to me when I die. This fear of death dies down as you get older, but my initial ideas about making a film having to do with what happens after the death of the main character came from that time. Later, when I was around 23, I watched Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery, 1947) on mushrooms. It’s a film shot entirely from the point of view of the main character and, under the effect of the psilocybin, I was transported into the TV and into Marlowe’s head, even though the film was in black and white and subtitled. I thought that the technique of filming through the eyes of a character was the most beautiful cinematographic artifice there could be and that the day I made a film about the afterworld, I would film through the subjective vision of the character. Years later, the opening sequence of Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days confirmed the effectiveness of this filmic tool for me. So this is an idea I’ve had for a while, before Carne or Seul Contre Tous. I’ve written it over the past fifteen years and I couldn’t even tell you how many drafts I’ve done. The first were much more narrative and linear, while the later drafts were much more abstract and euphoric. Irréversible was kind of a trial run for this project, where I tested ideas with flying cameras and long takes. What’s the link between drugs and death? Books tell stories where people have hallucinations at the moment of their death, linked to the secretion of DMT in their brain. This molecule is a substance that is the source of dreams, and, apparently, a massive discharge of DMT can occur in the brain during an accident or when one dies. It’s the same molecule that we absorb in our systems when we take ayahuasca, the magic Amazonian drink… I’ve never experienced clinical death, nor been in a coma, and I don’t believe in any kind of life after death. But I liked the idea of making a film about a character who wanted to reassure himself by believing in some kind of afterworld. As if he needed to embark on one last spiritual voyage, projecting his obsessions, desires and fears along the post-mortem path described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Speaking of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, was the book a direct source of inspiration? Is this film a loose adaptation or variation? In the description of the afterworld in The Tibetan Book of the Dead, there is definitely a voyage, a process with several stages that leads up to the final stage: reincarnation. But inside, the visions and the nightmares that are supposed to reveal the psyche, or past life, of the dying individual, aren’t described. The “Book” is very abstract, very colorful and very poetic. This parallel world, where the spirit, which has now left the body, floats for a long time, is described as a reality as illusory as the world of the living. Lots of people have been inspired to write fiction by this book (in particular ENTER THE VOID – GASPAR NOÉ Philip K. Dick), but it was also used to guide people through collective LSD induced psychedelic voyages, as Timothy Leary did in the 70s. While the book is a religious text, it quickly became a beacon for the hippies I so admired as a kid. Why is the main character a young “loser” drug dealer? He’s not a total loser. He’s actually kind of a winner up until he loses control of his dick and, by fucking his friend’s mother, ends up being turned in to the cops. For most people I know, the principal drive in life isn’t drugs at all, it’s sex. Selling drugs is more of a way of attracting affection. He’s just a young crazy dog who’s doing his best to be happy in life.