Enter the VoidThe opening credits need an epilepsy warning attached to them. Of all the jarring images, these are the ones I have to look away from. I truly think my vision and brain synapses are being damaged irreparably from the onslaught and want to protect myself...
And now as the film ends, I'm a little nauseous and my head hurts, and I'm heartsick, but I'm wowed too, so it's worth the pain and the sorrow I feel for the lost lives -- both the living and the dead. It's worth it, because I'm learning, even though I'm not sure what exactly, for Gaspar Noé pushes me into spaces that I'm never going to know personally, but vicarious exposure is new knowledge and new emotions for me to sift through and eventually I'll be able to process it more fully. As for now, I can sift through the words I've been jotting down and see what's there:
Panning, scanning:
tubes, tunnels, transmitters,
pipes, drains, alleyways,
light, lenses, heat, plasma.
-- Inorganic and organic
Burrowing, roto-rootering.
The city, a huge organism,
housing tiny organisms, housing emotions,
which are suppressed, or enhanced, or avoided.
Decidedly unsexy sex in the sex hotel. How come the parents' sex is so much more sexy? Is it the difference between neon and incandescence? One being cold and harsh and the other warm and soft?
Mangled, twisted car,
mangled, twisted siblings.
Lives detoured to destruction.
"What could have been?" is a moot question.
If he's reincarnated as his sibling's son,
he's in for a repeat of his last life.
Same location, same situation.
Harsh question for self,
Am I repeating?