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Movie Review: Irreversible

The best movie you should not see.

by A. Rosenbloom | 2003.04.23

Since his visceral short film Carne premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1991, Gaspar Noe has established himself as France’s latest auteur of shock. After his 40-minute film, he made his abrasive feature I Stand Alone, which took home a special Jury prize at Cannes in 1998. That film continued the story began in Carne of The Butcher: a man so angry and bitter after spending much of his life in prison that he resorts to an incestuous relationship with his daughter.

True, these two films are shocking, disturbing, and daring. However nothing could prepare any viewer for the experience of Noe’s latest film, a 90 minute assault on every one of the viewer’s senses that he has named Irreversible, a title that becomes more potent with each passing frame of film. The actions that take place in this film are all irreversible, as is the experience of watching the film from front to back, or back to front.

The film is told in reverse order. There are, indeed, credits that scroll at the beginning of the film, but it is soon realized that the credits are not only going from the top of the screen to the bottom, but also that they are the credits typically seen at the end of a film. Once the music kicks in, a minimalist yet striking score by Thomas Bangalter (one half of the French techno duo Daft Punk) we see the opening credits, which flash by quickly. It after the title of the film has flashed the screen several times that the story begins.

The narrative structure of this film, which cannot help but remind audiences of Christopher Nolan’s Memento, is the only thing saving the simple story from banality. After spending a day in loving embraces, Alex (Monica Bellucci) and Marcus (Vincent Cassel) attend a party with Pierre (Albert Dupontel), which ends in a fight. Out of anger, Alex leaves the party alone and is accosted, raped, and beaten in an underground tunnel by a pimp named La Tenia (Jo Prestia). Once they learn of the crime, Marcus and Pierre swear revenge and storm the Rectum; a gay S&M club where La Tenia hangs out. After running through the club, Marcus is accosted and has his arm brutally broken, and Pierre murders the wrong man. This is the simple and fairly uninteresting story of Irreversible.

Despite this story, however, there are many reasons that this film is at the same time compelling and impossible to watch.

First off, Noe conceived, directed, photographed, edited and operated the camera on the film. There was never a shooting script, all of the scenes were improvised, the film is entirely handheld with the exception of the final sequence, and each scene is shot in one uninterrupted take. There are maybe nine or ten shots in the entire film, with each scene running in real time, between eight and nine minutes each. The most famous of the nine-minute scenes, is the rape scene, shot with an unflinching eye, which sent hundreds running out of the world premiere midnight screening at Cannes last May.
In narrative terms, Noe thinks in reverse. The climaxes, the horrifically violent murder and the equally brutal rape, come within the first 20 minutes of the film, and what follows are the events leading up to those irreparable acts.

The trick that Noe plays on the audience is twofold. Once we have seen what comes at the end of the story, the beginning seems almost trivial, given the horrible things that do happen to these three characters. At the same time, the happiness and serenity of the day before these life-changing events becomes more disturbing once we know the outcome.

The question now becomes, is this film worth seeing? That is a hard question to answer. There are moments that are so violent and abrasive to the viewer directly, that once cannot help but turn away. At the two screenings I have attended, Cannes and Sundance, the hype drew people into the theatre, and the shock drove them out not halfway through the movie. I would have a hard time recommending this film without strong warning, however the feat of sitting through the entire film is nothing less than the most visceral film watching experience in recent memory. Not to mention the fact that Noe has mastered his technique of shocking an audience. At least for those people willing to sit through all 89 minutes, they are rewarded with a sweet and happy ending.

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