Controversy for controversy's sake?

Enter The Void [Film Review]

Gaspar Noe's neon-lit Tokyo.

Contains spoilers.


Sex, Violence, Drugs, Death, Incest; Gaspar Noe is back and ready to get you talking.


Anybody that recognises the name Gaspar Noe will approach his films with some level of caution. Whilst most of this caution may be carried by intrigue, many may feel a slight unease towards the French-Argentine Filmmaker's work. His last feature, 2002's Irreversible, split its audience into two teams. The majority of people were freaked out by the ultra-violence the tale of revenge spawned, with the famous nine minute rape scene tending to overshadow the film itself. Others, however, were able to withstand their discomfort in order to see past the film's extreme masculine provocation and into the technical ability of its maker. Noe's camerawork is what makes his cinema so innovative, with his desire to linger; exploit and excess designed to test the audience's resilience to his explosive subject matter.


Enter The Void will no doubt split the audience in a similar way.


The film's opening sequence is breathtaking in itself and captures the fast, thumping, neon-lit essence of Noe's vision of Tokyo. 

Never before have I been so excited about a film by its opening sequence. If you can't sit through the film's over-indulgent running time then just be sure to watch this.


Noe's tale is told through anti-hero Oscar ( Nathaniel Brown), an orphaned American turned drug-dealer in Tokyo's vibrant streets. The opening of the film is from Oscar's perspective, with the camera impersonating his blinks and body movement as he smokes a bowl of DMT. The audience is quickly introduced to the hallucinatory depths of the story through vortices of dazzling colour and light, designed to depict the trip Oscar is partaking. 


Minutes in and Oscar's latest drug deal is rumbled. Shot and left to die in the toilets of Tokyo drug dive The Void, Noe's camera dives inside his body to the very depth of his soul. Oscar's spirit is now free to roam the city of Tokyo, and here Noe relishes in the opportunity to switch from room to room, building to building, past to present. As Oscar soars the skyscape we  become privy to Tokyo's seedy nightlife, with porn provoking us in almost every room. Music thumps as if inside ourselves as Oscar examines the businessmen thriving off desperate women.


Before long Oscar's out of body experience is given meaning as he begins to watch over his stripper sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta). Noe blurs the hallucinatory nightmare-porn of Oscar's afterlife in Tokyo with memories in his past, watched with the back of his head in view. This stereoscopic insight enables the viewer to explore his early relationship with his sister, as their parents are killed in a shockingly brutal car crash. This shot is projected countless times throughout the film, with its ferocity breaking up the low thumping of Tokyo's persistent sex life. It becomes clear that Oscar's obsession with his sister has incestuous tendencies (of course, this is Gaspar Noe!) and early memories of his mother too are loaded with sexual desire. Whilst images of his mother's breasts and sexual activity with her husband are used by Noe to personify Oscar's longing for her, I found them unnecessarily crude. A man can long for the presence of his mother without having to see her tits every two minutes. 

Memories; Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) with is sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta).

For me this is where the film began to lose license, as I became bored of the scenes specifically designed to cause controversy. People argue that Gaspar Noe intends to shake you up, to freak you out and to disgust you. So if I say that I was shocked, disgusted or freaked out that in someway means that the film is a success, because he won? Whilst reconstructing an abortion and zooming down onto the bloody and dead foetus may be described as daring,  I don't feel it constitutes to ground breaking cinema and in any way merits applause for Noe. It's inclusion wasn't there to further the story, it was there so people could talk about it afterwards and swoon over how brave and inventive the filmmaker is. 


The acting is terrible and the omniscient narrative, whilst innovative, is often boring. Minute after minute is thrown away on long CGI spawned lightshows. Undoubtedly pretty to marvel at, Noe takes us away from the emotion and regret at the heart of the story and therefore provokes annoyance at being slammed back into it with another sex scene. I began to find myself fast forwarding through colour pattern after colour pattern until I landed on something new.

Enter The Void propels Gaspar Noe as a master of camera movement. Never before have I seen such a pumped up experiment of shots, with a particularly memorable vaginal view of a penis entering during intercourse. The film is definitely worth viewing in order to witness the unbelievable scope that Noe has when it comes to taking his audience on an aesthetic journey. Renown for his love of extremism in his films, the crazy hallucinatory nightmare porn of Gaspar's Tokyo definitely doesn't disappoint in that sense. The length of the film, however, means that Tokyo soon becomes tedious. So much so that the shock doesn't seem to register anymore, with my patience quickly tested taboo after taboo. A lot of people will like this film because you are supposed to. Noe is offering new, quirky extreme cinema to blast holes through the dull conventions of Hollywood favourites. It is a cool film to like, and whilst asking Gaspar Noe to be less controversial, to think a little more about acting and narrative would make him way less cool and no longer Gaspar Noe, I didn't like this film. 

Howl [Film Review]

Another old and rather short review for the film adaptation of Howl. 

James Franco as beat writer Allan Ginsberg in Howl.

So I finally got round to watching Howl. I always knew I was going to like it, due to its examination of the beat generation and its bohemian hedonists; the inclusion of two of my favourite present-day actors: James Franco and Jon Hamm; and of course the fact that the title and story refer to Allan Ginsberg's famous beat poem, which alone could form the basis of an invigorating short film.


The feature, however, chooses to also focus on the obscenity trial that Ginsberg's poem spawned. Jon Hamm gives an authentic feel to his role as a defence attorney attempting to prevent publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti's prosecution for publishing Howl out of his San Francisco book store. The film juxtaposes the literary experts who speak at the case with lines from Howl, encouraging us to laugh at those who criticise and warm to those who compliment.


The film features a reconstruction of the now famous gallery 6 reading of the poem, in which Franco mirrors perfectly Ginsberg's excited drawl. The audience includes Kerouac and Neal Cassady, who are also featured in reconstructions of Ginsberg's life. An interview with the writer at his home is also reconstructed, with Franco sat smoking and laughing, capturing perfectly the warmth and enigma of Ginsberg's character.

Aaron Tveit and Franco as Peter Orlovsky and Ginsberg.

My favourite part of the film has to be the reading of Howl, whose acts are demonstrated in animation. It displays the spontaneous creativity at the heart of Howl, and takes us away from the words oozing from Franco's mouth and into the crazy, angry and lonely thoughts of Ginsberg.


A film definitely recommended for those with an interest in beat literature, as the inclusion of Ginsberg's famous peers in the film, like Kerouac and Cassady is more than enough to ignite a sense of beat nostalgia. Without such interests the film could drag for some, but the charisma and warmth that Franco brings to the role is definitely worth a watch.

Never Let Me Go [Film & Book Review]

Here are two reviews I wrote a while back for Never Let Me Go. I read and wrote the book review before the film's release. Whilst I felt the film lacked some of the emotional depth that the book delivers, it made the story far easier to condense and is one of my favourite films of the year so far.


Contains Spoilers.

Never Let Me Go - Film.

Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan as Tommy and Kathy in Never Let Me Go.

Never Let Me Go is an usual, yet emotional book that has now been adapted into an unusual, yet emotional film. 

The film stars Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield as author Kazuo Ishiguro's donors, who are groomed from the moment of their cloning to fulfill their self-sacrificial destinies. Whilst attending a special School for donors in the English countryside know as Hailsham, they are told that they are different from normal people and are to strive to keep themselves fit and healthy. Kathy H (Mulligan), the film and novel's narrator, leads us through the trio's journey from children full of questions to young adults devastated by the answers. 

The film has had mixed reviews, annoyingly by some who most likely haven't even read the book. To criticise the feature for being an odd take on science-fiction isn't fair, as the screenplay has been adapted from an already published take on the genre. The English scenery mixed with the quiet, fresh faces of the film's actors is what makes the story all the more disconcerting. It doesn't present total dystopia, the characters aren't falling apart at the seams with high-tech spaceships parked in their drives. This, for me, is exactly why it works. The heartbreak and despair of the characters is mixed perfectly with their acceptance of the way their life has been determined. The story is an exploration of ethics and humanity, and for me the actors smartly displayed that whilst their characters were clones, they definitely had souls.

Mulligan, Knightley and Garfield as Hailsham's donors.

It's a thought-provoking film in which dialogue and action is scarce, but certain scenes linger long after you've left them behind. There's an uncomfortable shot of Ruth, (Knightley), pale and still on the operating table as a surgeon removes her organ and then leaves her there, dead and undignified. A fate predetermined for her kind and therefore perfectly acceptable for the surgeon. The end scene was also a strong translation of Ishiguro's written message. Kathy H describes how, although seen as an inhumane creature, she doesn't feel that life as a human would be any different. People tend to accept their fate. We all know we're going to die and yet we just get on. The film portrays this brilliantly, with Kathy showing early signs of pain at her predetermined fate, and yet choosing to get on and appreciate whatever she may have.

I really enjoyed the film, and found it much easier to digest than the novel, which tended to go off on tangents and confuse my sense of time with its non-chronological timeline. I think the characters were beautifully crafted and that director Mark Romanek's adaptation brought the book to an even better life.

Never Let Me Go - Book.

Kazuo Ishiguro's 2005 novel.

I decided to read Kazuo Ishiguro's 2005 novel, Never Let Me Go, after hearing that the film adaptation of the novel had earned positive responses from viewers at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival. I didn't have a clue what it was about and therefore didn't know what to expect.

I remember thinking in the first chapter that the story was told in an odd way. The first person perspective comes from Kathy H, who we learn is a carer for donors and is about to finish this role at the end of the year; somewhere in the late 1990s. She spends most of the story reminiscing about her time at Hailsham, a boarding School in the English Countryside.Here she makes her most significant friendships, becoming closest to Ruth and Tommy. Whilst we are kept somewhat in the shadows as to what carers and donors really means within the context of the story, the students at Hailsham seem to continue their daily routine 'knowing but not knowing.' What they do know for sure, is that they are not like the guardians at Hailsham, or the people in the outside world. Instead, these students are 'special' and it is od up-most mportance that they stay healthy. They have no parents or family, just the guardians, who are there to encourage them to remain healthy as well as be creative. This is in order to have their work submitted to 'The Gallery,' although none of the students seem privy to what the gallery actually is. Kathy, Ruth and Tommy therefore grow to be three confused teenagers, set on a predetermined path, unaware of the heartbreak that the path will bring. 

Isobel Meikle as they young Kathy H in Never Let Me Go.

There is also a love Triangle, with Ruth and Tommy beginning a serious relationship once the students are moved from Hailsham and into the Cottages to being adult life. The reader can sense, however, the feelings between Kathy and Tommy that have been apparent since childhood when they both  began to question what Hailsham was really about.

As the story begins to unravel, you find yourself unable to put the book down. It took me a while to fully get into it, often put off by the strange structure used by Ishiguro, meaning that the novel wasn't as cohesive as I would have liked. Kathy would often say: 'But I'll tell you about that later', and I'd find myself rolling my eyes thinking 'no just bloody tell me now!' I did, however, shed a few tears as the story came to a close and the characters embraced their fate. It owes a lot to Huxley's Brave New World in the way it examines the stepping order of human lives. Unlike Huxley's masterpiece, however, Never Let Me Go isn't one of my favourites, as the writing style and structure let the story down. I am still hoping to see the film out of sheer curiosity as to how the characters will transform on to screen, and with Carey Mulligan set to play Kathy, I'm sure I won't be too disappointed.

A rare example of a film adaptation I preferred to the original book.