Irreversible - Gaspar Noe

I walked past the DVD of Irreversible. "I heard that was supposed to be quite good" I quipped. "A bit like Memento". That's all I remembered from the reviews.

We watched it, and it turned out to be the most horrifically violent movies I've seen for a long time. Not since the house invasion in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer or the teenaged gang rape in Scum had I wanted to turn away and stop a movie. The plot in Irreversible is told backward. In a gay fetish club, an unhinged man Marcus (Vincent Cassell) and his friend Pierre (Albert Dupontel) smash another man's, La Tenia (Jo Priestia), head into a messy pulp with a fire extinguisher. In the middle, Marcus' girlfriend, Alex (Monica Bellucci) leaves the party, and is violently raped and beaten in subway by La Tenia. At the end, Alex and Marcus are in bed getting ready for the party.

The initial beating is unrelenting and brutal. The camera watches unflinching as La Tenia's head as it is repeated pounded by the fire extinguisher. There are no cuts in the scene. The face becomes flattened and contorted. Skin, skull and blood break off and scatter. Crushed and bludgeoned.

The central rape scene is more graphic. Noe's camera spins and flies for the first half of the movie. It zooms in, flies 360 degrees, zooms out, points upside down and every position possible. The rape is framed and static. The camera focused on Alex and La Tenia for the whole scene. Again no cuts or edits. Visibly, forcibly, brutally raped. The nine minutes seem to last forever. After she is raped she is beaten. Kicked and her face repeatedly slammed into the hard concrete ground.

The last half shows us Alex leaving the party, to Marcus, Pierre and Alex getting to the party, to Marcus and Alex in bed before the party.

To be honest I don't remember much about the last half to the film. The 2 scenes that burn are the killing and the rape. All the talk about going to a party, relationships and sex seem pointless when you know what is coming next.

But this reason alone is too shallow. The plot is paper thin. My initial feeling after seeing the film was exploitation. I felt the killing and rape scenes were too much, too graphic and gratuitous to be justified. What was the moral? Women shouldn't go out alone? Revenge is justified? Revenge is wrong? Time destroys everything? The spinning cameras and strobe lighting seemed to re-enforce the idea of style over substance. I felt it lacked the necessary depth to have the audience watch such distressing scenes. The light hearted scenes at the end seem like a pointless exercise in ill thought out dramatic irony.

After the initial shock I think I am still undecided about the movie. I could see how the nine minute rape could convey the true terror and brutality of a real rape. I can see how most normal movies justify and clean up a gung ho revenge act, whilst this one confronts the audience with the reality of rage and violence. I read an excellent review by Roger Ebert which has some very considered views on it.

I didn't find it enjoyable, but it has some cathartic effects. I would recommend this to those who like to be challenged. More interesting than the movie is the way the viewer feels about it. You leave the movie not thinking about the characters on the screen or plot, but about yourself and how it has affected you.