Boxus Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 thats really stupid though because its just what happens in the movie.. the main character is a drugged out junkie, does that mean the director thinks all humans are like that? people get affected by these movies because intense stuff happens and hten they get hostile towards it and the director for showing htem things they didnt feel comfortable seeing .. thats my theory , because the same thing happened with irreversible.. women said it was against women because theres a rape scene, men said it was against men because men mistreated women, gays said it was against gays because the main violence happened with a gay guy in a club... just because 'something bad' happens in a movie that has to do with a person with specific traits (junky, gay , hates women, etc) doesnt mean the director feels the same way as that character and it doesnt mean the movie is trying to say something to you like ALL WOMEN ARE EVIL or some dumb thing like that .. it doesn't bother me that enter the void is misogynistic, it bothers me that it is completely misanthropic in a way which i consider boring and pointless. gaspar has no sense of humor, and enter the void takes itself WAY too seriously. it seems like he just keeps showing you fucked up shit because he thinks it makes his art more powerful if it can viscerally effect people in an uncomfortable way. in my opinion that's a stupid, shallow trick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J3FF3R00 Posted May 27, 2011 Author Share Posted May 27, 2011 it doesn't bother me that enter the void is misogynistic, it bothers me that it is completely misanthropic in a way which i consider boring and pointless. gaspar has no sense of humor, and enter the void takes itself WAY too seriously. it seems like he just keeps showing you fucked up shit because he thinks it makes his art more powerful if it can viscerally effect people in an uncomfortable way. in my opinion that's a stupid, shallow trick. That is another thing that bugs me. Exactly! I feel when a filmmaker puts in "fucked up disturbing shit" it is because it will easily get a reaction with little craft, effort or intelligence. You know how the audience will react when you show a rape or an abortion. It will make them upset. Easy way out. Sure, the credit sequences and camera work is nice, but at the end of the day, there is a lot more to a good film than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 PS not trying to be a grammar dick but just to let you know, I think you mean 'involved' rather than 'implied' English grammar corrections are always welcomed ! As for that girl I talked with, I don't think she could be labelled as a "feminist" : she was just studying / working in cinema and audiovisual and so had a rather keen sense of film analysis. Her point was that Gaspar Noe, in all his films, shows women as a combination of a mother and a whore. As I said Enter The Void is the only Noe's film I saw so I can't have a general point of view about the way he shows women, but I kind of agree with the opinion that film have something disturbed about motherhood and sex. That said, I took that more as a mental functioning of the protagonist - which obviously is a little mixed up - than that a proclaimed point of view about women status from the director. Also, in the context of the film, I don't think that element is negative. That's just one of the only root of Alex. Anyway that's the way I felt it. Also, I understand Enter The Void can be perceived as freely provocative and inconsistent, but I also think that's the only thing you can get from it if you didn't get in it. Gaspar Noe liking to provoke the audience is a fact, but I don't think it's his ultimate point at all. This film hugely emotionally involved (:)) me and I know I'm not the only one. I completely identified in this flying spirit and felt both nostalgia for that past life and the characters playing in it, and peace of mind of a man that slowly accept the fact of being dead. I don't really know if that was the aim of Noe but anyway that's the way I felt it. The mix between the hardcore drug / sex life of the characters and this peace of mind I felt is the thing that I remember from Enter The Void. I have a friend who worked on the early preparation of the film with Gaspar Noe (her job was to collect pictures from Tokyo in the aim of finding a fitting background) and she told me that he was extremely calm and thoughtful. That doesn't prove anything but that fits with the way I pictured the man after seeing Enter The Void. Edit : I'm not familiar with english in such a level so sorry if it's hard to read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blir Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 Alright, maybe not feminist. Didn't mean to be presumptuous. Thing is some people can't get over their negative preconceptions, so what may be a recurring theme for a director for one reason or another ends up being something that detracts from their work.. for some people anyway. I think Noe has a similar streak as Von Trier in this "contempt for women" regard. I've read a lot of people cursing Von Trier because of it, literally making out he's a dick, in some cases calling him talentless, but to me that just seems like an emotional reaction to the content of his work, instead of a thought out critique of the art itself. Maybe he is provoking the audience, but maybe it's something he genuinely finds interesting also? In any case, I don't think it's representational of his or Noe's personality at all and I wouldn't use that against any of his films if I did. Some of the reason I like Irreversible and Enter The Void from a storytelling perspective is that they unflinchingly show the ugly side of human nature and one of the shittier things in life that I notice all the time is the way woman are represented and treated by a lot of men. I think Noe reflects this in his films, not for glorification but more for not wanting to shy away from the reality of it. Obviously when it's focused on and highlighted it's upsetting to watch and can turn people off and that's fair enough. I will expand on this later I think as I'm at work and it's taken ages to write just this. I totally get somebody not liking Enter The Void for whatever reason by the way, this isn't me defending the film from criticism, just like discussing this perspective is all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Coalbucket PI Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 it doesn't bother me that enter the void is misogynistic, it bothers me that it is completely misanthropic in a way which i consider boring and pointless. gaspar has no sense of humor, and enter the void takes itself WAY too seriously. it seems like he just keeps showing you fucked up shit because he thinks it makes his art more powerful if it can viscerally effect people in an uncomfortable way. in my opinion that's a stupid, shallow trick. Well said. It's one thing to include fucked up shit but to do it the way he did is just shoving it in your face, almost literally; to include a scene in which the camera zooms on a dead foetus in a kidney dish and plays a loud noise and flashing lights is an extremely blunt way of handling it. Similarly having your face jizzed into, I find it hard to argue any artistic or narrative merit to that besides shocking your audience. The car crash is shown about 3 times. Cry about your dead brother, fuck a girl, pour his ashes down the sink. The more I think about it the more it seems like a film about fucking and dying and flashing lights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 to include a scene in which the camera zooms on a dead foetus in a kidney dish and plays a loud noise and flashing lights is an extremely blunt way of handling it. Similarly having your face jizzed into, I find it hard to argue any artistic or narrative merit to that besides shocking your audience. I disagree. It seems you feel offended by that kind of scene, like the director uses the film to shock you but I'm not sure it's his goal. I see that kind of aggressive elements (like the loud noise and the flashing lights) as the director using his tools to transcript the emotional state of Alex's "soul" in a kind of abstract way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 Edit I wasn't able to do in the previous post : At this level it's actually just a matter of appreciation. What I want to say is that people who liked the film didn't especially felt that kind of scene as a provocative one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thehauntingsoul Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 The point of the movie was to take you on a disturbing adventure into the dark part of our human nature I guess. Anyone who has had a seriously fucked up drug trip can probably see lots of parallels in terms of the level of seriousness of the situation. I thought it was a very powerful movie and I've never seen a more accurate representation of a fucked up drug trip than this movie. If anyone else has, please let me know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J3FF3R00 Posted May 27, 2011 Author Share Posted May 27, 2011 Actually, that was another thing about the movie. It was nothing like being on drugs. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was closer to the real thing, IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Coalbucket PI Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 to be fair, it looked exactly like being on 2CB to me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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