OK, we know that Gaspar Noé’s experimental and surrealist, mindbender “Enter The Void” is coming out via IFC Films sometime this year, but when?
The film has been called everything from disaster to masterpiece, but we’re still dying to see it, cause we’re suckers for punishment or whatever. But c’mon, like Lars Von Trier, Noé is an enfante terrible and extremist, but his brutal films (“I Stand Alone,” “Irreversible”), must be seen, regardless if they’re successful or not. Someone like Noé must keep making films frankly.
So we asked and IFC Films tells us that the wait will unfortunately continue for a few months. “Enter The Void” won’t hit theaters or VOD until September. However, the film will be playing at the SXSW Film Festival next week.
A few other films IFC will be releasing this year — already tipped off by a BAM retrospective — and now confirmed to us, include Clair Denis’ African-set, “White Material” starring Isabelle Huppert, Isaach de Bankolé and Christopher Lambert. That film — which we saw at the NYFF last year — centers on a obdurate matriarch who refuses to leave her family’s coffee plantation in Africa during a Darfur-like genocide and civil war. There’s no date on this one yet, but IFC Films will release it later this year and it’s a good fit for them. Denis’ last film, “35 Shots of Rum” was released by an even smaller indie and basically came and went unless you lived in New York or L.A. which was a crying shame (this writer named it his #2 film of 2009).
Also an IFC Film for late spring/early summer is Christopher Honore’s next picture, “Making Plans for Lena” which stars Chiara Mastroianni (daughter of Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve, how about them genes) as a French single mom who returns to her parents’ home after splitting up with her husband.
Also an amazing side note, did you know that Gaspar Noé not only saw and loved “Avatar,” but that he was so moved he actually cried during the movie? “I cried when the tree caught fire,” he told OregonLive during Sundance. “It was something I never saw before. It was like when I saw the parting of the Red Sea in ‘The Ten Commandments’ when I was 10 years old. And then I cried when they were in the jungle and everything was glowing and it was just this beautiful imaginary world.”
Man, now we’ve heard everything. To cleanse yourself of that thought, you can watch the opening epilepsy-inducing credits to “Enter The Void.” Once you peel yourself off the floor, you’ll probably forget all of this. Who did that crazy techno theme? Why none other than Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter, who of course scored the entire nightmarish film (the full song below the credits, complete with some new images from the film). Also below, a French-language trailer for “White Material” which doesn’t have subtitles, but reveals some of the Tindersticks score and should give you a feel for the film, which is actually quite dark, moody and ominous.