INTERVIEW BY ALEX GODFREY
IMAGES COURTESY OF LAURENT LUFROY AND GASPAR NOÉ


I first met Gaspar Noé in 2002, just before his groundbreaking rape-revenge drama Irréversible was released. I was due to interview the film’s stars that day as well, but Vincent Cassel got hold of the magazine I was working for at the time, said I would make his wife (Monica Bellucci) look like a whore, and banned me from meeting either of them. Instead I spent the afternoon with Gaspar trawling around London’s poster galleries as he added to his collection of Kubrick’s 2001 posters.

It’s taken eight years for his follow-up to come out, but he’s been planning Enter the Void for a long time, before Irréversible even. Another Vice correspondent spent some time with him for our Film Issue last year, but a few weeks ago I went to a screening of the final, finished cut of the film, and came out with my molecules rearranged. Gaspar spent five years making his opus, which tackles hallucination and reincarnation in Tokyo, and it’s paid off—watching the film is a bit like starring in your own version of Total Recall, except you’re not a spy, you’re a dead junkie watching your sister’s life as a stripper in Tokyo’s red-light district quickly unravel. I liked the film a lot, especially how it looks, and so this is why Vice is talking to Gaspar about it all again, even though we ran a piece on him last year.

I mean, give us a break—90 percent of other magazines have interviews with the same people in them every fucking month, plus we have a documentary showing on VBS now where we hang out with Gaspar in Tokyo.

Anyway, for this, Gaspar and I met for breakfast in Soho and he told me he hadn’t had any sleep because he’d got into a fight the night before. He didn’t go into the details, and tried to wake himself up with a plate of fruit.

Vice: So when we spoke the other day I told you how much I loved this film. Are you happy with it?
Gaspar Noé: With the movie or that you liked it? Ha. Yeah, really happy with the movie. Is it the first time you’ve seen it?

Yeah. I want to see it again.
You should try to see the longer version. The longer version has nine reels, the shorter has eight. You can pull out reel seven and the movie still works.

Why did you cut it?
I had to sign a contract saying if the movie was above two hours and 20 minutes I would do a shorter version, and I just cut a whole reel. Reel seven starts just after the abortion scene, and ends with her throwing her brother’s ashes in the sink.

Right. Hopefully I’ll see it somehow. What’s it like for you to be through with this now, after having wanted to make it for so long? What is it, 20 years since you had your first ideas for this?
The first idea I had was to make a movie that would be seen from the point of view from the main character while he comes out of his body, a near-death experience movie, that would follow the main character far after the moment of his death. Enter the Void is influenced by a few different movies: 2001, Videodrome, Altered States. And I’ve tried lots to come out from my body and have an astral projection.

How? Sleep deprivation?
Sleep deprivation, hypnosis… I never had a car crash. People sometimes say that if they have a huge accident sometimes they can see themselves from above. But I believe that some hallucination is linked to the fact that one of the first senses that you lose is the equilibrium in your ears. So if you have a car crash and are anaesthetised when you’re operated on, they anaesthetise your ear and then your equilibrium. So if your brain is awake you imagine you’re floating above yourself with the images you kept in mind from the space you were in. And that’s how they explain, logically, what astral projections are. In my case, I believed for a while when I was 18, 20, that the mind or spirit could come out of the body, and I tried it by stopping breathing, things like that.

It didn’t work?
Didn’t work. I did some hallucinogenics also; I was trying hard to come out of my body, but it never worked.

Gaspar Noé during the filming of the Vice Guide To Film episode in Tokyo

You’re a big fan of Kubrick’s 2001. Did you want to recreate how you feel when you saw that for the first time?
How old were you?
2001 How much has your own drug-taking influenced this film?
One of the most interesting things in the film is the fact that he’s tripping when he dies and he isn’t even sure what’s happening to him. What have you researched in that area, regarding people being on drugs at the moment of death?
The Doors of Perception Tibetan Book of the Dead Tibetan Book of the Dead Were there things you wanted to do with the drug scenes that you thought hadn’t been done well in other films?
Tron 2001. Samadhi Bardo When I spoke to you in January you told me how much you’d really enjoyed the experience of seeing Avatar in 3D. Was that something you were really going for with this film, to push the boundaries and give people a different cinematic experience?
Seul Contre Tous Irréversible

You’ve said that Irréversible was in some ways a trial run for this film.
Enter the Void Enter the Void Irréversible Did it make you more confident to do what you then wanted to do?
Irréversible Enter the Void Enter the Void Irréversible Irréversible Irréversible Did you do everything you wanted to do with this film?
What were the ideas you didn’t get to do?
Tron Tron Tron Tron So there’s nothing you’d add to the film now if you had the chance?
Irréversible

Vice CEO Shane Smith and Gaspar Noé in Cannes for the Vice Guide to Film episode.

How did Enter the Void go down in France?
Have you had any censorship problems with the film?
Yeah, they do that, don’t they?
OK. So how far are you with the erotic film you want to do?
Are you doing it next?
What will make it different from other erotic movies?
Probably not.
Well, that’s good. Do you think you’ll be using similar filmmaking techniques again?
is released in the UK on September 24.