MovieChat Forums > Enter the Void (2010) Discussion > Am I the only that thinks that Oscar is ...

Am I the only that thinks that Oscar is probably just trippin'?

posted 10 years ago by gera9812
22 replies | jump to latest

I have read all the summarys, synopsis, reviews etc. I have also read that he is actually dead and his soul is flying around (something similar to the thibetan book of dead).
But what if Oscar is just tripping? There are several scenes that support my idea.

1) When he is with Alex, before doing DMT, Alex says that the drug reminds him of sucking his mom's nipples. Later on, Oscar enters an airplane and there he is sucking his mom's nipples.
2) Alex also said something like "When you are on DMT, you see everything red" or something like that, and when Oscar is shot , he starts seeing everything red.
3) When he is shot he says "Im just trippin"

There were more scenes that made me think about this theory, but what do you think?

[–] perseomx 10 years ago

Yep, i think the same. At the begining of the film Alex said that the drug releases the same chemicals in the brain that when someone dies, and the effect is only for minutes but for the person is an eternity.

[–] danielmoorewrites 10 years ago

He's also told that DMT lasts six minutes but feels like eternity. So it's possible.

[–] Dollhouse_89 9 years ago

Also, how convenient is it that he experienced exactly what Alex said would happen after death on the same night he was pondering the Tibetan book himself?

I wonder if what he'd read somehow worked its way into his trip. I can definitely accept this as a trip. I can equally accept that he died.

[–] waxworker 9 years ago

I wish you would tell the other details of what makes you think Oscar's trip was just a "trip." The points you raise are all very interesting.

[–] waxworker 9 years ago

I wish you would share what some of those other scenes and details are. All the points you raise are very interesting. I, for one, would like to think that the entire experience, including Oscar being shot, is a trip, though the director seems to have declared that Oscar was, indeed, shot.

Peace and good fortune,

Kevin Scott Marcus
The Waxworker

[–] willpsill 9 years ago

I noticed that the regular Tokyo became increasingly similar to that amazing neon/blacklight model in the artist's room.. as the plot went on. In fact I believe the texture of the "Love Hotel" was from that model. Seeing stuff that way is more thru the eyes of someone tripping than a spirit

[–] mohammadarifmohammadanuar 9 years ago

i noticed that too. in my opinion, he indeed got shot, but the minutes into his death, he was tripping for an eternity. so, time passed by his brain slower thanks to the DMT, but eventually he would just die/fade to black.

[–] nightdrive 9 years ago

Yes, to all of you guys commenting. It was a trip, Gaspar Noe flat out stated that the whole movie is Oscar having a trip not actually dying. So yep yep!

[–] divisionbell-2 9 years ago

So the drug is released in the brain as we're dying, therefore if he's going through the trip then he must be dying. Does it really matter if he's tripping or experiencing the afterlife? Maybe they're one in the same. Maybe the drug allows for it all to happen. For someone who seems to denounce religion he managed to make one hell of a spiritual film, whether he intended for that or not.

[–] tucoify 9 years ago

Gaspar Noe flat out stated that the whole movie is Oscar having a trip not actually dying.

It's actually kind of both. In case you're referring to the wiki themes article, you need to read Noé's quote til the end:

(...) it's the story of someone who is stoned when he gets shot and who has an intonation of his own dream."

[–] Blitzerg 9 years ago

I did a ton of research on the Tibetan Book of the Dead and DMT before I saw the movie.

So some of you had stated that DMT indeed does release in your body when you dream, and when you die. Now Oscars trip was all said and done when he wakes up to the call.

So he actually does get shot and killed in that bathroom. From there we are pulled out of the body and are taken on Oscars journey. We see all these flashing lights that Alex was talking about and how when you die you review your entire life all before being reincarnated.

Basically everything you're seeing is happening as you see it. I interpreted the ending as Osacr was reincarnated as his Sister and Alex's baby. The only thing that sort of puts my interpretation in the dirt is that when Oscar is "reborn" and his vision is all blurry, the actress is the Women who played Oscars mother in flashbacks and not his sister..

Amazing film. Probably one of the deepest films I've ever watched right up next to The Holy Mountain.

[–] Robert_222 9 years ago

I also thought that the blurry vision of the lady at the end looked like his mother.

Is it possible that he was reborn into the same life? Maybe he's doomed to live the same life over and over again for eternity.

If that's the case, could this be some sort of hell that he is experiencing?

[–] christian-smolka 9 years ago

I would say that the woman at the end is Linda. Oscar is in some kind of love with her, that's why he is constantly getting in the head of her lovers while they are having intercourse, I guess.

And he has to fulfill his promise to never let her alone. So being reborn as a baby gives him the pleasure too have a mom again, not letting his little sister alone and having her around all the time.

After a messed up life and getting shot on a gross toilet, this is some kind of a jackpot for Oscar, I think.

[–] dumuzi23 9 years ago

But the woman in the end, even though the vision is blurry, clearly looks more like his mother than like his sister, no? I took this as a strong hint towards an interpretation of "he is not actually floating around and getting reincarnated, it's just the stuff he sees, while dying. It all ends with him reliving the (possibly false) memory of his own birth".

Regarding the DMT thing: This is often stated as fact (even by Alex in the film), but the guy who came up with it (Rick Strassman, "The Spirit Molecule") stated very clearly that it's nothing but speculation when he talks about release of DMT through the pineal gland while dying. All that is really proven is that there are traceamounts of DMT in the human brain.

[–] wearyourlove 8 years ago

He is experiencing his own conception and birth (primal fantasy) via his sister, who is actually his mother. The out-of-focus camera is, I suppose, an attempt at an optical approximation of pre-mirror stage vision, the self undifferentiated from the mother's breast. The idea that he's being (re)-born to merely experience his life, or some version of it, all over again in a never-ending loop is basically confirmed when his umbilical chord is cut: severed from the womb and its "wholeness," he begins screaming as he is moved out of the room into a blinding light. The miracle and horror of life starts with birth.

[–] djcultured 9 years ago

having had first hand experience, he is not tripping and is surely dead, if not, then this movie is giving a false experience which wouldn't surprise me since many other movies portray some drugs incorrectly

[–] tucoify 9 years ago

According to Noé he's kind of in between, being shot is definitely for real and no imagination though:

(...) it's the story of someone who is stoned when he gets shot and who has an intonation of his own dream."

[–] mangageek 8 years ago

Well Gaspar Noé is not really the kind of director who would portray drug use incorrectly, since he has used drugs a lot at the beginning of his career

[–] EllexizDiamond 9 years ago

Seems you're not the only one but you are still wrong. According to what it states in a movie synopsis: "A U.S. drug dealer living in Tokyo is betrayed by his best friend and killed in a drug deal. His soul, observing the repercussions of his death, seeks resurrection."

Seems pretty straight forward from the given synopsis for this film.

[–] kmags84 9 years ago

I hope you're being sarcastic... While I agree that he is in fact, dead, I don't think a synopsis can be taken literally in the case of films like this. Look at a Kubrick film and it's synopsis on here (Or anywhere for that matter), they're NEVER actually what his films are about.