Irreversible

Irreversible (2002)

Recommendations: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009), Requiem for a Dream, Dawn of the Dead

Movies 365: Day 6 – Irréversible

Irréversible starts at the end. Literally. The movie begins, and the credits roll, completely backwards, it’s similar to the opening of Memento, a film that Irréversible was very clearly inspired by. The rest of the film borrows the central filmmaking technique from Memento as well, instead of being a singular unbroken narrative, Irréversible is segmented, ten minutes or so pass, then with a swirling camera move, we go back another ten minutes or so, ending up at the beginning of the previous segment.

Irréversible starts with Marcus (Vincent Cassel) being taken out of the gay club The Rectum, on a stretcher by paramedics, his arm broken. Then, we start back again; this time Marcus enters The Rectum looking for a man named “The Tapeworm.” This sequence ends with Marcus receiving the broken arm, and then we go back again, and again, and, well, you get the idea.

One cannot talk about Irréversible without talking about the infamous rape sequence, a seemingly unbroken ten minute scene in which Alex (Monica Bellucci) is raped in an underground tunnel. Though uncomfortable to be sure, the scene is masterfully shot and acted. Up until this scene, Noé’s camera is energetic, constantly moving, yet it is in this scene that the camera stays stationary, as we watch the scene unfold. For it’s reputation, the scene is surprisingly not very graphic, but the cumulative effect of watching the rape happen, no cutting away to relieve the tension, is what makes the scene hard to watch. It’s not there purely for shock value, it’s an important scene in the film, not just because it finally explains everything we’ve seen prior, but it is the moment the film switches, stylistically as well as tonally.

The quick paced anarchy of the first half is replaced by the slower relationship drama delivered in the second half, and it’s here where Noé proves that not only is he capable of delivering kinetic thrills, but also compelling narrative that doesn’t rely on camera trickery. It’s also a nice relief from the frenetic violence, as we begin to understand the inner workings of the complex relationship at the center of the film.

As a meditation on revenge, Irréversible succeeds where many films fail. A complex and difficult film, Irréversible is ultimately a rewarding experience, one that any true cinephile will undoubtedly enjoy. If you’re looking for something other than the blockbusters and Oscar bait crowding the box office right now, get yourself to the nearest video store and rent Irréversible.

A word of warning for those who are interested in watching, the first half of the film, especially the first twenty minutes or so are filled camera with moves more disorienting than Cloverfield but if you can stand the movement, it’s well worth watching.

(Read Less...)

Irreversible (2002)

Oh God! Perhaps the most controversial, visceral, disturbing, WTF?! I-wanna-look-away-but-can’t-take-my-eyes-off movie of the decade.  I haven’t seen Lars Von Trier’s ANTICHRIST (the other most controversial movie of the decade) so I don’t know who’s top, but ANTICHRIST has to be very, veryvisceral to be able to top IRREVERSIBLE.  Lots of people hated this movie, and with good reason, but as ugly and in your face as it may be, this is what they call *bravura filmmaking* at its most raw and fearless.  I can’t even talk about the plot.  Like MEMENTO before it, IRREVERSIBLE uses a backwards, non-linear narrative, and the camera work can get sickening; mostly at the beginning (the first 15 minutes give or take) when it moves on a spiral direction, and you either adjust to it, or you get dizzy and barf.  But the story grabs you, oh it grabs you all right, and it punches you over and over, until you feel like you are there, experiencing the ugly alongside its characters.  The manic, music (created by one half of Daft Punk) also seems to screw itself into your brain, helping the sickening feeling along. Not for everyone, but something that you have to experience at least once. It burns itself into the back of your eyeballs forever.

Irreversible

Who are the bourgeoisie? Is it you and I? – slouched, respectively, reading/writing this review. Blogging seems like a pretty bourgeois pastime. I can’t picture true aristocrats writing blogs (shooting peasants, yes; catching syphilis; maybe). Do heroes of the working class blog? Is it a proletariat thing? I guess the aristos would say so, but I dunno… you can’t ween the masses off their opiates properly if you’re sat your bedroom. So bloggers, accept it: you’re bourgeois. French director Gaspar Noé has it in for you something rotten, I’m afraid. His movie, Irreversible, is a one and half hour assault on all your petty bourgeois sensibilities, and if you pee yourself in bourgeois terror at the result, he’ll be a very happy bunny.

Irreversible is structured backwards, a bit like Momento. We begin at the scene of a murder and gradually (as time re-spools) we come to understand not who did it, but why. The murderer is a friend of the hero, but his part is incidental besides the shock that he’d do such a thing. The real story is about happy couple Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci, whose happiness comes to an abrupt halt one night, and who exist to prove the movie’s maxim that “time destroys all things”.

Let me give you an idea who you’re dealing with when you watch a Gaspar Noé movie: the murder, which involves a fire extinguisher and a man’s head, lasts a full minute. One shot. One head. Repeated blows (and I repeat, repeated). It is not a shot you are likely to forget, but nor is it a shot that any sane director would want in a movie. Why does Noé leave it in? Because it’s his reason for making the movie. He wantsto upset you with the level of violence. He’s that kid in kindergarten who picked apart a spider just to watch you squirm. Sure, he’s going to talk a lot of crap about holding up a mirror to society, but deep down, he knew that shot would scare you, that it would lend his movie notoriety, so he leapt at the chance (what happens to Monica Bellucci was, I’ll bet, reason No. 2 he made the movie).

There isn’t a scene in Irreversible that isn’t designed to offend somebody. So it isn’t enough for Vincent Cassel to get in an argument with a taxi driver; he has to be an Asian taxi driver! And racial epithets have to be exchanged! And then Cassel has to beat-up a trans-sexual prostitute! And say something homophobic! And beat up a gay man! And take drugs! And resort to violence when provoked every single time! Because he’s us! We – the petty bourgeois movie audience! – who are silently complicit in his debauchery; his lechery; his homophobia; his unleashed id. Why does Monica Bellucci wear a dress that’s painted on her the night she gets raped? Why else? To challenge our moral piety! Oh shudder movie audience at your own hypocrisy! Yes, just by looking at Bellucci – you probably figured there was a distinction between thinking “she looks good in that dress” and raping her – but you were wrong! Woefully wrong! And Gaspar Noé is going to keep banging you over the head with how wrong you are, until you cry “oncle”.

Whether anyone is any good in Irreversible is superfluous. The performers are here to take a beating. Vincent Cassel has a head start, because he always looks like he’s been beaten up. Monica Bellucci fills out the aforementioned dress beautifully, and looks good naked (reason No. 3 Gaspar Noé made the film).

But does anyone have these bourgeois sensibilities anymore for Noé to shatter? The audience he craves is surely Jean-Luc Godard’s audience – spitting out their coissants as the gaped at Week End. Are those guys still around in the age of YouTube? It isn’t that the sex and the violence on offer in Irreversible aren’t repugnant or shocking to a modern audience; it’s that the message of the movie seems to belong to 1968. The whole attractive-moneyed-couple-destroyed-by-interaction-with-the-Parisian-underclass thing seems a bit dated for my money, depending as it does on a bourgeois reception from the audience to nurture the shocks. My eyes started to roll about the time Vincent Cassel argued with the Asian taxi driver. You’re bourgeois: when did it happen for you?

(Read Less...)