Light up the Void  

One night, a man breaks into his maid's room and tries to rape her, while in counterpoint a radio drama exposes the thoughts of a man swept away by a passionate love affair.

Bitter Pulp, at the origins of Gaspar Noé's cinema

Made in 1987, Bitter Pulp is an experimental short film by Gaspar Noé, then still a student. Lasting approximately eight minutes, this little-seen film is one of the very first works by the Franco-Argentine filmmaker, predating Carne (1991) and I Stand Alone (1998), which would bring him to the attention of a wider audience.

Devoid of a true plot, Bitter Pulp is a radical, sensory experience. The film favors a succession of fragmented images, often close to the body and matter, at the expense of any conventional narrative. This approach already foreshadows the rejection of cinematic conventions that will characterize Noé's entire body of work.

Formally, the short film is distinguished by its shaky camera, abrupt editing, and deliberately aggressive visual treatment. The aim seems less to tell a story than to provoke a physical reaction in the viewer, a recurring theme the director would later embrace. The title, Bitter Pulp, evokes an organic and unpleasant dimension, reflecting Noé's early interest in flesh, violence, and unease.

Although rarely screened and difficult to access, Bitter Pulp holds particular importance in the filmmaker's filmography. It functions as an aesthetic sketch of themes later developed in Carne, Irreversible, and Enter the Void, notably the directness of the gaze and the desire to confront the viewer with uncomfortable images.

More than a finished film, Bitter Pulp thus appears as a declaration of intent: that of an author who, from his beginnings, views cinema as a physical and disturbing experience, rather than as a simple narrative tool.