Gaspar Noé: Enter The Void

Sometime a month ago, either at Goodwill or during a clearance sale at a local bookstore, I picked up The Tibetan Book of the Dead for less than $5. I still haven’t finished it, the first 30 pages are already quite dense with unfamiliar names, rituals, and cosmologies. Words I never heard of, words I don’t understand. However what I do understand and agree with, is their openness to Death. Instead of being a formidable topic, they talk about it in an explorative and curious way. In a way that makes me feel their take on this topic is quite serious, a reality they maintain a distance from to quietly observe, and humbly accept.

The book started with a preface introducing the history of Tibetan Buddhism, the Chinese Communist Party’s invasion, the Dalai Lama’s escape into exile, and how Tibet’s isolation, high altitude, and monastic traditions fostered a culture of introspection. I had gotten another book on the history of Tibetan Buddhism in traditional Chinese, acquired while on a trip to Taipei, Taiwan, summer of 2024. The book is called The Dragon in the Land of Snows: History of Modern Tibet Since 1947. That afternoon at Eslite Bookstore in Taipei, I flipped through the first few pages and decided to get it right away. 

There’s always a risk involved with buying books at a bookstore. I don’t like doing research, I never look up the books beforehand.  I don’t trust other people’s reviews, as it turns out, many things I like are stuff people hate. This leaves me with the only option of going to a bookstore physically, and flipping through the preface and intro, making a “to be or not to be” decision on a whim. Sort of like what I did as a kid, going to a pirated DVD shop and flipping through the pile, deciding based on the poster design, and synopsis. Minimal information, sort of like a gamble, sort of like a mini adventure, exhilarating, a process I enjoy, a game I played by myself, in my head.

Growing up in the mainland, Tibet was always framed as part of China “has been for thousands of years,” the textbooks said. Just like all the other regions those textbooks insisted had “always belonged” to China. But the truth is, “China” itself is a modern concept. People back then didn’t think of themselves as “Chinese” in the way we do now. They identified with dynasties, clans, and dialects. For most of its history, “China” was fragmented, conditional, imaginary. Something I never really thought about until reading Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong. That book broke something open in me. History doesn’t have to be written in an authoritative voice. Independent, subjective, individual, and private voices can be just as powerful. It’s precisely our collective memory formed by these scattered personal truths that creates the history we share. History should be written by those who have lived it, the people who are actually going through the thick of it, not by so-called authorities or distant scholars. At least, I’m no longer interested in that kind of history.

I got The Tibetan Book of the Dead, even though I haven’t finished reading it. The original name in Tibetan is Bardo Thodol, Thodol means “through hearing”, Bardo means an in-between / transitional state. Other than The Bardo of Dying, which is what this book is called, there’s also the Bardo of Life, of Dreaming, of Meditation, of Dharmata, and becoming. And this Bardo Thodol book is actually meant to be read to the dead. After someone has just passed away, a lama or close relative recites the text daily for up to forty-nine days, in hopes of awakening the deceased’s awareness, guiding their consciousness toward liberation rather than letting it fall back into the cycle of rebirth.

On page 41, in the version I got, it talks about different stages of death. There are eight stages, the details of which I won’t go into, the notable point is that clinically a person would be pronounced dead at the first stage described here, though ego / consciousness won’t dissolve until the 5th stage. This means from when you are pronounced dead, until you lose consciousness, there are a few more stages where you are still aware. Enter The Void is an attempt at simulating that, while exploring themes of traumatic events and their potential damage on a person’s mental maturity and growth, attachment style, future life decisions, etc etc.

The story starts with Oscar, the protagonist doing DMT in an apartment in Tokyo. He’s reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead. His friend Alex comes to walk him to a bar called The Void, to deliver drugs to his client Victor, whose mom Oscar screws occasionally and for money, and perhaps, for projections of his mom who died when he’s at a young age. The two walk into the bar, Oscar gives Victor the drugs, only to realize that they've been surrounded by undercover cops. Alex has lured Oscar into a trap. Victor says “I’m sorry”, cops storm in, attempting to arrest Oscar.

In the midst of chaos, Oscar runs into the bathroom, and attempts to flush all the pills down the toilet, claiming to have a gun to buy himself more time, as the cops hammer on the door. Oscar is still high on DMT, his heart racing, hands shaking. Cops finally rush in, someone accidentally shoots Oscar in his lungs or heart. Oscar immediately falls down, and passes out.

The film is shot in Oscar’s first perspective POV. As for how they shot it, I have no idea. Meta Rayban didn’t exist yet, which is not that cool of a product anyway. Either way they found a way to make the POV very convincing, with camera shakes, and blinking to imitate how an eye perceives information. As Oscar dies, the camera glides up to the ceiling of the bathroom, looking down at Oscar’s body in a pool of blood from above, like a ghost. 

For a while, I wasn't sure if Oscar was dead or not. If he’s dead at the beginning of the movie, then what’s this story about? When Oscar’s “spirit” starts floating above the streets of Tokyo, and finds his sister, Linda, who's a go-go dancer / stripper at a club. She walks into the backstage green room, starts screwing her boss, who screws all the strippers. Her phone rings, it’s Victor calling to deliver the news of Oscar’s death. She doesn’t get it. 

She finally gets it after all the screwing, she breaks down. Very strong performance from everyone in this movie, btw. The hovering camera makes everything all too immersive. I was genuinely shocked and had no idea where the story was going. 

Oscar’s ghost goes between having flashbacks of the past, about how he and his sister Linda witnessed their parents being killed by a truck coming from the opposite direction on a vacation. It’s a very powerful narrative for this part. The accident came as a complete shock to me, as it was for anyone who would experience it. The siblings made a pack to never leave each other’s sides, losing parents made the two develop an unhealthy relationship. Their relationship stayed as how they were the year the accident happened, their relationship never matured. They still acted like they were kids as adults, slept together, and went to amusement parks together. I guess I’m the same, part of me never matured. I still can’t move past it. 

The movie is exactly how I imagined death to be, with experimental / avant-garde filmmaking techniques. I highly recommend it.