spacetime coordinates: 2000’s Tokyo
Enter the Void is a 2009 English-language French drama film written and directed by Gaspar Noé and starring Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta (*Noé found Paz de la Huerta after holding auditions in New York City.”She had the profile for the character because she likes screaming, crying, showing herself naked—all the qualities for it.” Due to a desire that Linda and Oscar should be believable as siblings, Nathaniel Brown, a non-professional, was cast because of his resemblance to Huerta.:) and Cyril Roy.
Set in the neon-lit nightclub environments of Tokyo, the story follows Oscar, a young American drug dealer who gets shot by the police, but continues to watch subsequent events during an out-of-body experience. The film is shot from a first-person viewpoint, which often floats above the city streets, and occasionally features Oscar staring over his own shoulder as he recalls moments from his past. Noé labels the film a “psychedelic melodrama”.
Noé had tried various hallucinogens in his youth, and used those experiences as inspiration for the visual style. Later, when the director was already planning the film, he tried the psychoactive brew ayahuasca, in which the active substance is DMT. This was done in the Peruvian jungle, where the brew is legal due to its traditional use as an entheogen. Noé described the experience as very intense, and said he regarded it “almost like professional research.” Since few on the design team had ever taken a hallucinogen, it was necessary for Noé to collect and provide visual references in the forms of paintings, photographs, music videos, and excerpts from films. One reference used was the works of biologist Ernst Haeckel, whose drawings influenced the organic patterns seen during Oscar’s visions. read more
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TimeSpace Warps 