Enter the Void
IFC Films | Release Date: September 24, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
69
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
French director Gaspar Noe has kept a pretty low profile since his 2002 drama "Irreversible" notorious for its brutal nine-minute anal rape scene. But this epic, psychedelic mindfuck confirms him once again as the cinema's most imaginative nihilist. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
With beauty, mild and sharp jolts, and mesmerizing camerawork, he (Gaspar Noe) tries to open the doors of perception. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesRobert Abele
Suffice to say, unrelenting material like this isn't for everybody. That it is a gloriously filmic gesture - by turns jaw-dropping, elusive, silly, obnoxious, painful and beautiful - is celebration enough. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Enter The Void is a trance-like experience, feeding the shimmering neon of Tokyo at night into a spectacular hallucinogenic head-trip. Read full review
80
MovielineStephanie Zacharek
A picture that's by turns inventive, tender and boring, and one that uses a variety of novelty point-of-view techniques: If Penisvision isn't your thing, then Vagin-o-rama just might float your boat. Read full review
80
Time OutDavid Fear
A strong contender for both the artiest drug movie and the druggiest art movie ever made, Gaspar Noé's tour de force of forced perspectives and free-form grief is, in every sense of the word, a trip. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezDec 9, 2010
Bold and intrepid film buffs: The gauntlet has been thrown. Here's something you don't see every day - thank goodness. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn LevyOct 28, 2010
There's little that's conventionally pleasant about the experience, save the satisfaction of having witnessed the novel and the extreme. But that sensation is at the heart of a lot of great art, from Poe to Stravinsky to Picasso to Diane Arbus to NWA. Nöe would likely, with a black-hearted grin, appreciate being ranked with such company. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad Derakhshani
Enter the Void inspires ambivalence. Aside from its technical brilliance, it is an experience equally sublime and infuriating, revelatory and painful, ecstatic and terrifying. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
From the rapid-fire, purposely unreadable opening credits to the final baby POV shot of a birth, this is a dazzling and brutal exercise in cinematic envelope-pushing. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
As pure, outlandish outlaw cinema it's undeniable. Read full review
70
Village VoiceKarina Longworth
A mash-up of the sacred, the profane, and the brain-dead, Enter the Void is addictive. Read full review
70
NPRMark Jenkins
Confrontational and hyperactive, Enter the Void is a difficult film to experience. That's not because Noe is somehow inept. The Argentina-born French writer-director knows exactly what he's doing and what effect his swirling camera, exuberant colors and strobelike effects will have. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Director Gaspar Noé proved a shock poet in "Irreversible" (2003). In Enter the Void, he's a shockingly tedious show-off. Read full review
40
Boxoffice MagazineRay Greene
Enter the Void was never going to be another "Avatar." It won't be another "Irreversible" either. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterPeter Brunette
Many flashbacks to the children's early trauma, along with other scenes, are unnecessarily repeated several times. Read full review
40
VarietyRob Nelson
Not clever enough to be truly pretentious. Read full review
40
EmpireAndrew Male
Painting from a typical kaleidoscopic canvas Noé crafts a brain-bendingly metaphysical trip that definitely won't be everyone's cup of tea. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
An unbearable exercise in provocation. Read full review
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