NYFF and Enter the Void

You've no doubt noticed the lack of posts concerning the New York Film Festival. I had promised to review a good number of films thanks to a press pass and having tickets for a number of public screenings. Well as I said earlier a back injury has prevented my attending the Film Festival for some of the screening. And then just as things were looking up there were further complications when the brakes of my car decided that they didn't want to work and started leaking brake fluid. Luckily nothing happened other than some tense driving home but I've become limited in my ability to get to and from anywhere. In today's case I can't get to the train station, so the 5 films I planned on for today didn't happen. As it stands now there are four or so more events left on my dance card for next week so I'll report on those.

Not wasting time I did spend today watching some movies.

I finally watched the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In(2008) which has been remade in English as Let Me In(2010) and which opens tomorrow. I really liked the film a great deal, however I found it less a horror film than a sort of romance.Those interested in seeing a really good, but bloody, supernatural film should give it a go.

I also watched the short version of Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void (2009), on IFC's In Theaters on demand service. As you probably are aware I posted a very long rambling review on the full directors cut back last month. I loved the visuals but hated the over the constant traveling from place to place.

This time out, watching the film on a 42 inch LCD TV the film disappointed even more. Shorn of the big visuals and big movie theater sound the film completely collapsed. The dialog was inane, the characters were insufferable, and the revelations even more painfully obvious and unremarkable. Yes, the film seems to move better with roughly a half an hour trimmed (The short version is 138 minutes compared to the directors 165 minute complete version), but it still doesn't manage to make it any more enlightening. If nothing else a second viewing simply shows the film to be even less remarkable and less clever than it was before. The film tells you what its about in the first ten minutes and then staggers to its appointed revelation for two plus more hours. As I said when the film ended the first time, "you took three hours to tell us that?"

Summing it up by using the term of our second look series, on further review Enter the Void is pretentious twaddle. As my friend Lou said as when he called me after his second viewing its best seen with the pictures on and the sound off.

I can't recommend it, especially on TV where you really can't get lost in the trippy visuals. While not one of the worst films of the year, it is one of the least necessary and one of the biggest disappointments. If you must see it do so on the biggest theater screen possible with the best sound system.