Review of Enter the Void

 I am normally very weary about earnestly proclaiming a movie to be great or a director as, “the most important of our generation,” but while I won’t and will never say it, Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void almost got me to.  Before I proceed I should also note that Noé’s movies are not for everyone--especially Irreversible which I plan to watch again for a review soon--, many tend to find them physically nauseating, chauvinistic, violent, assiduous, incestuous, perverted, and basically the closest you can get to a high budget smut film.  Having said this though there is even more to say for his daring and talent as a film maker.  

    Enter the Void makes its entrance with a set of terrific opening credits that make you almost want to pause the movie to make sure that your television is not broken.  It is an unrelenting sensory assault that perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the film.  

The film itself is about Oscar, a teenage drug dealer whose death early on in the plot leads to a journey through the afterlife as he waits for his eventual rebirth. During his journey we see, among other things, the nauseatingly traumatizing moments that shaped his life as he witnessed them.  There is the horrific death of his parents, the separation and eventual longing for his sister because they were both adopted by different sets of parents, his life in Tokyo, his drug use, and his eventual foray into being a full time drug dealer.  This all occurs with no narration and little to no exposition.  After the story of his life has successfully been established the movie then takes a turn towards the hallucinogenic and auditory experiences of Oscar’s spirit as it gets closer and closer to reincarnation.

While the visuals of the film along with its countless transgressive elements will probably get a lot of the attention, the thing that makes the movie so engaging is how Noé tells the story.  The aforementioned attention grabbing elements are not presented to merely stand on their own, but rather to bookend the various episodes that Oscar re-experiences and experiences anew until they all become intertwined.  Enter the Void is the epic retelling of the protagonist’s life and everything that it encompassed for better or for worse.  If it all sounds exhausting, its because it is, but like any journey or quest, the pay off is well worth the anguish. 

Review of The Endless Summer

 Considering the relentless onslaught of disgusting winter weather we’ve been receiving in New York, Bruce Brown’s seminal 1966 surf documentary, The Endless Summer, comes as a much needed respite.  This classic surf film chronicles the adventures of two eighteen year old surfers: Micheal Hynson and Robert August, as they follow the summer around the world--the simple elegance of the concept alone is enough to merit a viewing.   

Their journey begins as summer in their home state of California comes to a close and the warm surf is replaced by frigid winter waters with no wet suit to be had..  From there they travel around the globe making stops in Africa, Australia, Tahiti, Hawaii, and New Zealand looking for the best surf the world.  

Without a doubt the surfing in the film is very impressive. Our heroes manage to find something to surf in every location they go to, be it a wave not much bigger than a toaster or the perfect waves at St. Francis Beach in South Africa which seem to have no end.  And while I am sure that this movie could stand on its own as a terrific and straightforward surfing film, it is Brown’s personal flair that truly ingrains the movie into our memories.  

There are countless side quests that find Micheal and Robert being chased by monkeys, seeing how close they can get to a giraffe without it running away, surfing down giant sand dunes, and even experiencing the pitfalls of buying gas at a gas station in Africa called “Agyp.”  All this with no supervision or fences to protect them--the world certainly seemed like a much more relaxed place then.  

The film’s entire soundtrack is performed by a band called The Sandals--reading the name alone is probably enough for you to figure out exactly what their music sounds like--and is narrated entirely by Brown, who delivers every ridiculously cheesy line with such earnestness and contentment that it is impossible to ignore the good vibes stewing in your gut.  

While the movie certainly isn’t a substitute for sitting outside with your friends on a hot day with really cold beers, it certainly comes close and with such an abundance of cold and snow this winter, that is more than enough.

Review of Mother (Madeo)

     

     From South Korean director Jooh-ho Bong comes a movie that plays fast and loose with the noir-murder mystery by replacing its hard boiled P.I. in a fedora and trench coat, with an earthy, medicinal herb selling mother of one with little more to guide her than her maternal instincts and the leverage provided by her promises of free acupuncture.  Set in a small rural town in South Korea, the movie revolves around the brutal murder of a teenage girl.  When the blame is immediately placed on the titular character’s son, a slightly mentally challenged twenty-eight year old whose memory is frustratingly inaccessible, our hero is forced to act. 
     Her search for what she knows is the truth is riveting.  She delves far beneath the seemingly constant lull of the townspeople to discover what all similar towns reveal: lots and lots of teenage promiscuity.  While some strides are made here, we see that our protagonists’ strongest attributes are not her detective abilities--in one embarrassing instance involving a golf club and lipstick we see her detective abilities are rather inept if not totally absent--but her knowledge that stored deep inside her son’s vault like brain are the memories of exactly what transpired the night of the girl’s murder.  Which to her, will undoubtedly prove his innocence.
     On display throughout the film is Joon-ho Bong’s knack for making a film that is beautiful to look at.  He reflects the town’s sullen and melancholy atmosphere perfectly with deliberate camera movements and edits.  He also harnesses Hye-ja Kim’s worn and weary countenance as the mother by rarely ever having the camera shoot her in anything less than a medium close-up.  
     Like Joon-ho Bong’s previous film, The Host, Mother takes a genre we are very familiar with and adds to it terrific weirdness along with a strong message about the importance of family unity.  While both films have these similarities, Mother  differs in that it is a movie about memories: how we categorize them, how we forget them, and ultimately, how we access them (an acupuncture technique, a cell phone, and sometimes, a simple flying kick to the head). 

First and Last Non-Movie Review Post

    I’ve always really liked watching films and feel as though it would really be worth my time if I used a blog as a way to force me to write about the movies I’ve seen.  Like most people, I’ve been talking about having a blog since blogs became a thing.  Now, thanks to some pushing from my sister, I’m actually doing it.  I’m trying to keep each post/review shorter than 400 words for the sake of the handful of people who will actually frequent this thing.  The range of genre and quality of the films I watch will seem arbitrary and bizarre because it is and that is the way I like it.  On average, a movie only takes up two hours of my life so its worthwhile to watch as much random shit as I can.  Enjoy.
 

-Danny