Love (opens in Cleveland November 6th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[LOVE opens in Cleveland on Friday November 6th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

There’s always an element of boundary and button pushing to Gaspar Noe’s films, and his latest, LOVE, is no exception. The film’s very first scene involves a couple bringing each other to orgasm in porno film explicitness. And although this reviewer only saw the film in plain old 2D, theatergoers will be able to experience it in 3D, which given some of the shots (pun intended) ought to prove quite interesting.

The plot unfolds from the perspective of Murphy (Karl Glusman), a young father and filmmaker who loves his son Gaspar, but is more than a little ambivalent towards the boy’s mother Omi (Klara Kristin). This is only exacerbated when Murphy checks his voicemail on New Year’s Day to find a message from the mother of an old flame, triggering a series of flashbacks in which we learn about Murphy’s often rocky but passionate relationship with Electra (Aomi Muyock).

Repost: Enter the Void (May 7th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[ENTER THE VOID screens Saturday May 7th at 8:30pm. This is the uncut version of the film, which runs 20 minutes longer than the version that played the Cedar Lee back in December. This review is of the shorter version.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

When small time drug dealer Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) gets gunned down in a bathroom stall by the police, his mind/spirit embarks on a journey to find a new home. Like Robert Montgomery's experimental noir film Lady in the Lake (1947), Enter the Void is shot entirely from a subjective point of view. We see everything through Oscar's eyes at first, and then from a completely unanchored “eye of god” point of view once he becomes free of his body. In showing this, at times director Gaspar Noé jerks and spins his camera around in such a way that he seems to be trying to make his audience nauseous.