American Cinematographer - October 2010 - 18

Production Slate
In Enter the Void, a young man (Nathaniel Brown) relives key memories following his death, often appearing silhouetted in the frame. Cinematographer Benoît Debie shot this scene on location in Tokyo with available light at T1.3, using a daylight-balanced negative. Selective defocusing was done in post.

Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void is an unabashedly strange film. Some might consider it avant-garde fare, but its beautiful imagery — including dark apartments featuring halos of warm light, bright Tokyo night exteriors, and nightclubs full of vibrant, pulsating lights — is accessible to all. The film was shot by Benoît Debie, who previously collaborated with Noé on Irreversible (AC April ’03). Enter the Void starts as a POV film, with the camera standing in for the eyes of the invisible hero, Oscar (Nathaniel Brown). A young American living in Tokyo, Oscar makes a living selling psychedelic drugs, while his sister, Linda (Paz de la Huerta), works as a stripper. The film begins with Oscar smoking DMT, which triggers a long, vivid hallucination. He then stumbles off to sell some drugs in a dark bar. When the police rush in to arrest him, he takes refuge in the toilet, where he is shot. Oscar dies on the spot and becomes a kind of ghost. The movie then combines Oscar’s astral hovering with flashbacks of his life. The astral projection, very loosely inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, involves the camera soaring above Tokyo streets, swooping over walls and hovering on ceilings, watching those closest to Oscar, mostly Linda. Oscar’s memories are presented in an unusual way: we see the darkened silhouette of his back on the side of the frame, or sometimes smack in the middle. These views are blended to recall the siblings’ traumatic childhood, and their recent adventures in Tokyo. Oscar’s ghost sees his own ashes go down a drain, witnesses Linda’s mourning, and watches as she struggles with
18 October 2010

American Cinematographer

Enter the Void frame grabs courtesy of IFC Films and Wild Bunch. Benoît Debie photo courtesy of Debie.

Contemplating a Colorful Afterlife By Benjamin B

despair and hope. In a spectacular sequence, Oscar sees Linda make love at a “Love Hotel” that is full of rooms with luminous, mating couples. AC met up with Debie at Cannes in 2009, right after the world premiere of Enter the Void, and recently continued the conversation by phone. We met separately with Noé in Paris. Noé says the details of Enter the Void’s dream are grounded in his analysis of his own perception. For example, he wanted to avoid the color blue because that color is absent from his own dreams, and he sees himself in silhouette in his memories and dreams. For verisimilitude’s sake, Noé also added a “blinking effect,” one or two recurring black frames, to Oscar’s POV in post. The director explains that he dislikes using professional lighting instruments. “I have a phobia of movie lights,” says Noé. “I don’t like having equipment on the set that would prevent me from turning the camera around. Benoît and I had an agreement on Irreversible and on this film that there would be no movie lights on the set.” He concedes, however, that exceptions were made on Void in order to create the strobe lighting in the nightclub, and to allow for some impressionistic washes of changing colors. In keeping with the director’s request, Debie achieved most of the film’s lighting practically, with in-frame lamps or fluorescent tubes. The bulbs were often on dimmers to allow for speedy light changes, with the added benefit of warming the color. Apartment interiors were mostly lit with practicals, and the strip club’s dressing room set was keyed with a frame of 30-watt bulbs around the makeup mirror. Oscar’s death in the bathroom is harshly lit with a single bare bulb, as is the twice-repeated image of him in a bath-

American Cinematographer - October 2010

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