Where did the inspiration for this project come from?

"I had an atheist upbringing, but like most atheists, towards the end of adolescence, when you start smoking joints, you also start asking yourself questions about death and the existence of a possible afterlife. Even though I never had religious leanings, I started to get interested in books about reincarnation, particularly Raymond Moody's *Life After Death*, and I imagined all sorts of scenarios about what might happen to me if I were to die. This fear of death faded as I grew up, but the initial ideas for making a film about what happens after the main character dies came from that time. Later, around the age of 23, I discovered *Lady in the Lake* (Robert Montgomery, 1947) while high on mushrooms. It's a film shot entirely from a first-person perspective, and suddenly I was transported into the television and into the main character's head, even though the film is in black and white and subtitled. I thought that filming through the..." Using a character's eyes was the most beautiful cinematic device imaginable, and I knew that the day I made a film about the afterlife, it would be from a subjective point of view. Years later, the opening scene of Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days confirmed the effectiveness of this cinematic approach. The idea for this film had therefore been brewing for a long time before Carne or I Stand Alone . I wrote it for almost fifteen years and I've lost count of how many versions I went through. The early ones were much more narrative and linear, the later ones more abstract and ethereal. Irreversible was already a kind of testing ground for this project where I experimented with ideas for flying cameras and long takes." GN

What is the link between drugs and death?    

"Some books describe how people experience hallucinations at the moment of their death, linked to the release of DMT in their brains. This molecule is the substance responsible for dreams, and it seems that a massive release can occur during an accident or upon death. This molecule is the same one that can be absorbed in large quantities from certain Amazonian plants... I have never experienced clinical death, nor been in a coma, and I don't believe in any kind of afterlife. But I liked the idea of ​​making a film about a character who, to reassure himself, wants to believe in the afterlife. As if he were taking a final journey in spirit and projecting his obsessions, desires, and fears according to the post-mortem path described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead." GN

Regarding the Tibetan Book of the Dead: was it a direct source of inspiration?

Is the film a loose adaptation or a variation?

"In the Tibetan Book of the Dead's description of the afterlife, there is primarily a journey, a structure with multiple stages, the last of which is reincarnation. But within it, visions or nightmares are not described, as these pertain to the psyche or the past life of the dying person. The 'Book' is very abstract, very colorful, and very poetic. And this parallel world, where the disembodied spirit can float for a long time, is described as a reality as illusory as the world of the living itself. Many people have already drawn inspiration from this book to write fiction (Philip K. Dick in particular) but also to guide group LSD trips, like Timothy Leary in the 1970s. Although it is a religious text, this book quickly became a beacon for the hippies I so admired as a child." GN

Why did you make the main character, with whom the viewer is meant to identify through the device, a young, somewhat loserish drug dealer?

"He's not just a loser. He's a bit of a winner until he loses control of his dick and, after sleeping with his friend's mother, gets ratted out to the cops. For most people I know, the main driving force in life isn't drugs at all, but sex. Selling drugs is more of a way to get affection. He's a wild young guy doing his best to be happy in life. And in that respect, he's pretty universal." GN

Has it been like that since the original script? Did you go through other types of characters, with different backstories?

"No. From the start, I wanted to make him an average character, completely normal. Neither cowardly nor particularly brave, and a bit of a womanizer, like most people we call 'cool'. In fact, that's perhaps why I named him Oscar, because it reminded me of Gaspar, the person I find easiest to identify with." GN

Why make them a brother and sister couple?

"As brother and sister, they both came from the same womb. It feels as if they are two sides of the same coin, especially since they are almost the same age... Without being twins, there is an existential dependence between them. The death of their parents has already, in a way, deprived them of their legs. The death of Oscar or Linda would be like the amputation of arms for the survivor." GN

Has this almost incestuous relationship always been present?

"I don't see an incestuous relationship. I see, however, two lost young people starved for affection. They want to recreate the family they've lost forever and struggle not to imitate the parents who are no longer there. You don't have to be incestuous to be upset that your sister is sleeping with testosterone-fueled jerks while you're desperately trying to recreate the cocoon of childhood." GN

The theme of misunderstanding, or of an accident that can suddenly turn a life upside down and change a destiny, is quite present in your films. Does it inspire you, or is it simply a dramatic device?

"Whether it's in Carne (a misunderstanding that turns into a stabbing), in Irreversible (the anonymous rape on a street corner), or the car accident in Enter the Void, the recurring theme is that you can lose everything in a second. The fear of losing one's parents is every child's ultimate fear, and indeed, it's a dramatic element that anyone should be able to relate to. I once met a girl who, along with her little sister, had witnessed their mother's death in very similar circumstances. As for me, I had a taxi accident when I was very young, which, although minor in comparison, remained etched in my memory. But the real dramatic element in this film is the blood pact between the two children, with this impossible-to-keep promise to protect each other, even beyond death." GN

Has the action always been set in Tokyo?        

"The first version of the script was set in the Andes Mountains, the second in France, and I even wrote a version thinking of shooting the film in New York... But for me, Japan is the most fascinating country there is, and I've always wanted to make a film there. For this particular project, with its hallucinogenic quality requiring very vibrant colors, Tokyo (which is one of the most colorful cities with the most flashing lights I know) was the ideal setting. Even though it seemed very complicated at first, filming there was an enormous pleasure, and I would be happy to make another film in Japan. Despite the technical complexity of the shoot, the crew was so passionate that even working fourteen hours a day, six days a week, I felt like I was having fun. I rediscovered the energy you get when you're young, making short films, but with incredibly talented and ultra-professional crews. Their desire for perfection was as joyful as it was contagious. After that, I filmed in Quebec with a completely new crew." "Just as motivated and professional, even though the approaches to the work are very different. It was also quite funny to go from filming with fun-loving, post-adolescent actors to filming with very touching children." GN

The film features very complex camera movements...

"My biggest obsession when I started preparing the film wasn't who would be in it, but who my grip would be. The most complicated thing was finding someone skilled enough to devise crane mounting systems so the camera could constantly fly through walls. It seemed like an impossible technical feat. We tried having prototypes built. Ultimately, we thought we'd shoot on location, but we had to rebuild a lot in the studio because it was impossible otherwise. As a result, we had enormous cranes in the studios, and their movements were sometimes limited. I had nightmares where the crane was stuck, and every night I dreamt about camera positions and shot sequences... Luckily, I found a Japanese grip who was as brilliant as he was lovely. It's a miracle the film is so technically complete, because every sequence presented a new technical problem." GN

Does the Love Hotel really exist in Tokyo?

"Like 'The Void,' this Love Hotel was created entirely in a studio. There are many of them in Tokyo, but foreigners aren't really welcome and everything is written in Japanese. I was inspired by photo books of love hotels, but I pushed the psychedelic aspect further." GN

How long did the filming take?

"Filming in Tokyo took over three months. The Montreal shoot, for the childhood scenes, took four weeks. Initially, I was thinking of a city like New York, where I spent part of my childhood. So it seemed natural to me that the early childhood scenes would take place there. But due to labor laws, we ultimately chose Canada because we could film for many more hours a day. In the US, it would have taken us eight weeks instead of four." GN

Were the dialogues scripted, or did you improvise in the spirit of Irreversible?

"Unlike Irreversible, where we had a three-page script, we had a hundred-page script with very little dialogue... Because the project was very visual, we had to describe every detail, even the color of the clouds, to help people visualize a film that seemed extremely abstract. So I wrote down all the details of the staging, the camera movements. Then, on set, for certain sequences, I often suggested that the actors add their own dialogue and actions once the 'useful' take had been shot. Dialogue is never better than when it comes naturally to the actors. In fact, if the film is now over two hours long, it's because there's a natural rhythm to the sequences. If you try to speed up that natural rhythm, you end up with results that are too informational, and the situations no longer live on their own." GN

How did you approach the casting?    

"The deliberate choice was not to use recognizable actors, but not necessarily non-professionals either, because for the role of Linda, I wanted someone who was used to screaming or crying on cue, as the film contains many melodramatic sequences. I saw young actresses, non-professionals, and models. Then, in the United States, I met Paz de la Huerta, whom I liked more than the others. Next, I had to find a brother who physically resembled her, because I can't stand films where the brother and sister don't look alike. Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) and Alex (Cyril Roy), on the other hand, aren't actors at all. Most of the people on screen never imagined they would one day be in a film. They are people who are comfortable in real life, they have fun in front of the camera, and I think that at no point did either Nathaniel or Cyril feel like they were working. Paz had "Probably more aware of playing a role." GN

How did Nathaniel Brown feel about never seeing his face?

"For the role of Oscar, whose face we never see, I would surely have had to deal with narcissistic meltdowns at some point if I'd had to cast an actor. So, I chose someone who wanted to be a director and who was thrilled to be involved in a film shoot, contributing ideas if he wanted. He's very intelligent and proved to be excellent on set. During a first-person perspective sequence when I was very tired, I even offered to let him operate the camera for me. I met Nathan about ten days before filming began. He was selling t-shirts in Brooklyn. A week later, he was a movie star in Japan. As for Cyril, he's a Frenchman living in Tokyo who's as eccentric as he is friendly. He was accompanying a friend to the casting call we were holding for foreigners living in Tokyo. He'd come because he was a fan of I Stand Alone and Irreversible and wanted to talk to me." "He's a talking machine... I put him in front of the camera and suddenly, I saw the character I'd been looking for for a long time." GN

How would you define the genre of the film?

"Psychedelic melodrama." GN

Have you always had this psychedelic side in mind?

"Even though I greatly admire Alan Clark, Peckinpah, Fassbinder, and certain directors who depict the cruelty of existence in a rather realistic way, this time I wanted to make a hallucinatory film of images and colors, something dreamlike or hypnotic where visual and sensory beauty would take precedence over factuality. Without wanting to compare myself to such geniuses, this time I was thinking more of certain sequences in 2001 or the work of Kenneth Anger. Even though drug use is often mentioned, it's not a film about drug use, but rather about existence as a drift without a destination. The main subject would be the sentimentality of mammals and the shimmering emptiness of the human experience." GN

Pierre Buffin's involvement in post-production, what proportion of the footage was shot and then manipulated, and what proportion, more psychedelic, was original visual creation?     

"The film is in three parts and incorporates three types of narrative systems, each linked to distortions of perception. The idea is to reproduce altered states of consciousness through cinematic means and to get as close as possible to human perception, even during phases of sleep, agony, etc. After the thirtieth minute, Oscar is in a trance-like state and begins to have hallucinations that will only stop with the end of the film. When you create 'mental' special effects, it's like improvising a concert without ever having been a conductor or knowing how to play any instrument: you are completely dependent on whoever chooses the musicians and is able to harmonize their work. In the end, a musical 'taste' emerges, but the instruments are in the hands of others. And there, with Pierre Buffin and his teams, I couldn't have been better supported." GN

How do you communicate mental images?  

"I did a lot of research by watching films. I archived a huge number of short films, clips, books or paintings, a whole visual file and a very complete collection of excerpts (from Tron to 2001 or the short films of Peter Tscherkassky, for example), which could give an idea of ​​the type of film I wanted to make. Once the shots are filmed, we put them in the hands of the graphic designers and animators and we try to go from a real image to another that is closer to the given reference." GN

Was the project difficult to finance?

"It was quite easy to visualize the film, but conversely, more complicated to put it on paper to finance it. There were many false starts with different producers at times when, technically, the film was impossible to make. And I'm ultimately glad the film took so long to make because today, thanks to technological advancements and Pierre Buffin 's expertise..."  Thanks to his team, the film became feasible in a way that wasn't ridiculous. Whereas eight or ten years ago it would have looked like a poorly staged puppet show. So the most difficult part of the film, more than the shooting, editing, or post-production, was finding the money and convincing people to shoot a big-budget psychedelic film in Tokyo with erotic sequences, no well-known actors, and the risk of it being rated R... Fortunately, Vincent Maraval of Wild Bunch did everything he could to get things going. He introduced me to Marc Missonnier and Olivier Delbosc, the producers of Fidélité, who were later joined by Pierre Buffin as a co-producer." GN

The film was presented in official competition at the last Cannes Film Festival, even though it was far from finished and in a longer version. Why did you choose to show it that way?   

"If you're invited to participate in the World Cup and all your friends are going, whether your team's jersey is ready or not, you don't care; it's just as fun, or maybe even more so, to play shirtless. Of course, the image people have of you is a little less civilized. But that's all to the credit of the Cannes Film Festival and Thierry Frémaux, taking risks and even going so far as to program films still in development. I couldn't refuse this invitation, and I'm more than happy to have participated in the tournament with my producers and key collaborators, even if we all ended up on the pitch, overexcited and with our chests exposed. Cannes is the only festival in the world where people really go wild for or against films, and, I must admit, I enjoy that kind of turmoil. And, unlike the year of Irreversible, I was very proud to be able to share the controversy prize this time with Lars von Trier, whose I really enjoyed the film." GN

In the final version, the sensory, visual, and auditory treatment of the film evolved considerably. Can you tell us about it?

"Between the moment we learned the film might be selected for Cannes and the screening date, there was only a month to transform a very unfinished work print into a presentable film for a room of 5,000 people filled with friends, but also with my worst cultural enemies armed with their Kalashnikovs. Having seen, a few days earlier, the documentary about the tightrope walker who crossed the great void between the Twin Towers, my producers and I figured that in our case, no one would die anyway, and we could double our efforts to make sure we didn't miss out on the joy of taking on the challenge.  Pierre Buffin then tripled BUF's visual effects team to achieve a presentable result. The copy presented at Cannes was shown in high-definition video and without any credits. It was a direct output from my computer, which I had color-graded myself and mixed in a record time of three days. I never would have believed it beforehand." that the result would have been so convincing. But after a month of sleepless work, the truth is that once the official screening was over, I had absolutely no energy left for interviews or even for celebrating. My only dream was to sleep. Since the Cannes Film Festival, the film has been thoroughly mixed, and we've changed all the music. All the special effects have been improved, and doubling and shaky-image effects have been added to make the entire second half of the film much more cerebral. Some scenes have been sped up, others shortened. And above all, I was finally able to create the opening credits, which didn't exist at Cannes and which now get applause in every theater. I was finally able to color grade the film properly and transfer it to 35mm. The final version of the film was presented for the first time this year at Sundance, and to my great surprise, the film was compared to Avatar, because of its technical complexity or its psychedelic aspects, but of course, not because of the universe. described." GN

You've been working on Enter the Void for several years now. This film is not unrelated to 2001, the film that, you say, marked your life. How does it fit into your filmography? 

"Like many filmmakers, all my life I've dreamed of making my own 2001 ... grafting onto it other emotions I felt with Eraserhead or Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. I must have seen the former at least 50 times, the latter almost 30, and I still never tire of them. But, without wanting to compare myself to these great filmmakers, the finished product is a world away from those benchmarks, certainly because the obsessions that gave rise to this project stem from my twenties and are much less mature than those of Kubrick, Lynch, or Anger. As a result, I think it's really a film for teenagers seeking altered perceptions. A 'trip' film, like the way 2001 was marketed when it was released. The result is still a rather expensive oddity in the international production system, and that's precisely what might make it a success. Without the passionate support of Wild Bunch, Fidelity, and BUF—this film would never have been made. Unless you're attacking religions, for a director or an actor, a film is never risky. For the producer, it is. Long live them! " GN           

Interview:  https://buf.com/films/enter-the-void/

INTERVIEW PIERRE BUFFIN

Visual effects art director & co-producer: 

What was your first reaction upon reading the script?

"I read the script about eight years ago and fell hopelessly in love with it... At the time, I knew neither Gaspar Noé nor his work. I was ready to do anything to participate in the making of this UFO, especially since in the meantime I had fallen in love with Gaspar and his work..." PB

Did you participate in a preparatory consultation phase before filming began?

"There were many discussions with Gaspar about his vision for the film and his expectations. We tested different shooting effects, defined the methods and techniques that, without slowing down the shoot, would allow us to more easily intervene in the shots once filmed. Our role before filming was mainly to reassure him about the feasibility of each effect, to write technical notes, and to explain our special effects methods to the film crew." PB

How many people worked on the project?

"From 5 to 55 people over a period of 2 years." PB

BUF is a co-producer of the film, is this the first time you have been involved in a project in this way?


"No, we do sometimes co-produce films at various levels. Generally, when we receive this kind of offer, it's not a good sign financially... Gaspar introduced me to numerous producers who were interested in financing the film. They all ran into the difficulty of funding such an unusual project, where almost every shot would need special effects, and where it was difficult to define and precisely cost those effects. For the film to get made, we finally understood that we had to commit to taking responsibility for the effects." PB

What degree of creative freedom did BUF have in developing the visual effects?

"Our role is to translate the director's ideas and desires into visual effects. Gaspar inundated us with references. We did a lot of research, some of it quite freely. But the goal of this research is, through a process of elimination, to visually approach what the director wants. It's a relatively long process, and it generally takes time to create a visual effect that feels right. The team then worked on the entire film in close collaboration with the director. The filmed sequences (especially the astral visions and other subjective camera shots) were spliced ​​together to ensure visual continuity, stabilized, and restored as needed. All the images underwent progressive visual processing. Some parts were entirely computer-generated, such as the hallucination sequences when Oscar smokes DMT, foreshadowing his mind's escape into a universe of organic and unsettling forms. Similarly, the city of Tokyo was entirely recreated to allow for its dreamlike and mental exploration." PB

BUF : https://buf.com/films/enter-the-void/