(France 2002 99m) DVD1/2
Time destroys all things
p Christophe Rossignon d/w Gaspar Noé ph Benoît Debic ed Gaspar Noé m Thomas Bangalter art Alain Juteau cos Laure Culkovic
Monica Bellucci (Alex), Vincent Cassel (Marcus), Albert Dupontel (Pierre), Jo Prestia (Le Tenia), Philippe Nahon (Philippe), Stéphane Drouot (Stéphane), Michel Gonduin (Mick), Mourad Khima (Mourad), Jean-Louis Costes (‘fist’ man),
The idea of having a film’s narrative run in reverse wasn’t a new one. Memento had done it superbly, and surely had an influence on Gaspar Noé’s film, yet in all other respects the films could not be more different. Christopher Nolan’s film was, to all intents and purposes, a mystery, and the backwards narrative aimed to get us to the point where we understood the beast. Irreversible has no mystery, it just unravels slowly, falling backwards as if down a flight of stairs like that ball of wool in Delicatessen.
It begins, or should we say ends, with Philippe Nahon, naked in a sort of asylum cell, discussing how he came to be there, referencing the finale of Noé’s earlier Seul Contre Tous in which a slaughterhouse worker sleeps with his daughter. A shocking enough start, but merely a way of saying we’re in the same primeval world. From there, we descend below to the ominously named gay club The Rectum, and two people are being dragged out, one unconscious and another very much conscious, to be taken away following what seems to have been an unprovoked murder. As the scene ends, we find ourselves with the said two characters as they first descend into the bowels of The Rectum in search of a man called Le Tenia. They repeatedly battering a fire extinguisher into his face…only it isn’t him, we know the real culprit is rather watching the murder.
It transpires that the reason for their fury towards Le Tenia is that he brutally raped in an underpass the woman they both love; one of the men is her current squeeze, Marcus, the other her ex-, Pierre. The film then proceeds to take us back to the rape itself, back before to a party where the woman, Alex, fatally decides to leave alone, then back still earlier to the subway journey there and, finally, to Alex and her lover waking from making love and preparing to go out for the party. It’s as if we have been plunged into the darkest pits of hell, slowly been hoisted out of it to the point where we see Alex and Marcus, clearly in love, fooling about in the bedroom. It’s crushing to see them so happy when we know what’s to happen to them both, and the final piece de resistance twist scored to Beethoven’s 7th, sends one away in simultaneous euphoria and despair.
Easy it is to warn people of what they are about to see, with a special warning, in time-honoured fashion, to those with photo-sensitive epilepsy, as the strobe lighting is enough to disorient even those who don’t suffer from the condition. Yet it’s a dizzying trip even without the lights, the camera swirling between preceding scenes, the horror of the realisation in that final sequence – in which Alex’s dream seems a premonition of what will come, and which she misreads catastrophically – and all centring around a rape scene of unparalleled brutality. Cornered alone in a shabby underpass painted red, Alex is anally raped by a homosexual psychopath who, for good measure, beats her within an inch of her life and into a coma. It’s so horrific it dares you to look away, and in doing so we might miss the most horrifying thing of all; namely that she could have been spared had one spineless passer-by not turned away when he saw what was about to happen. After this, the brutality of the opening sequences illustrate perfectly how the inexcusable may be excusable under certain circumstances; vengeance is a human right, we’re told, but such fury can lead to horrific misjudgement and the injustice of lynch law. For their part, all three leads are superb, with one scene about orgasms on a subway train straight out of Jean Eustache, but special mention to Bellucci, whose work in the rape scene surely qualifies amongst the bravest in film history. Stunningly shot, head-spinningly edited, fearlessly directed, it’s an assault on the senses, a film to turn both heads and stomachs. It’s also one of the most essential films of the 21st century.
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Wow. I’m anticipating this being quite the thread. You’ve got some balls, Allan, that’s for sure. This is one polarizing film. I haven’t seen it since its release, but I certainly haven’t forgotten it. It’s always been one of those movies that disgusts me (as it should), but I can’t deny the impact the film had on me. However, it’s always a dilemma for me: just because a film has a very specific effect, and that effect is as memorable as it is here, does that make it a great film? I mean sure it’s memorable, but does that mean it’s any good? If we go by this criteria then I suppose I should list something like I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE as the best horror film ever made for the upcoming countdown. However, I can’t do that because that film is bollocks, and ultimately I think IRREVERSIBLE is bollocks, too; but, this is one hell of a defense of the film. Nice work.
The difference with these films is the backwards narrative Kevin (as I say below), plus IRREVERSIBLE is a rather great film in several other ‘film’ aspects (it’s beautifully shot, edited, paced, acted, directed, scored, costumed, etc), i.e. it’s a great art film. Whereas I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is mostly a poorly made film, save the decent lead performance. I have known people who like it, and don’t dare condemn them for it, but comparing these two films is baseless IMHO. It would be like finding similarity in SCANNERS and THE PROWLER in that they both feature exploding heads. One’s a good rather interesting film, the other is slightly above average slasher film.
I’m glad this film is on the list, and even high on it. I’m also glad that it isn’t any higher. This is number 2 on my list of movies I’ve only been able to watch once, but have to force myself to sit through again whether I like it or not. Number 1 on that list is “Science of Sleep”, which for some reason hit me way harder than I’ll ever be willing to admit (even here, in that seeming hyperbole).
I haven’t seen this yet, although I’ve been hearing about it for years – it is of course rather notorious by now.
An excellent review.
If I’m not mistaken, however (and a spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen), was Le Tenia the guy beaten to death in the opening, or was the wrong man killed? I always thought this was one of the most important aspects of the film, the fact that upon further inspection, the drive for revenge wrought perhaps a greater injustice than what inspired it, and a crucial reason for portraying the events backwards.
If I remember correctly the wrong man was killed. Suffice to say I will never bother to investigate and confirm this. I imagine Allen laughing maniacally in front of his computer after posting this latest entry lol.
you are both correct, not only is it the wrong man, but the guilty man directs the violence onto that said man.
Due to contentiousness and ambiguity I have slightly altered my piece to remove some of the ambiguity and, hopefully, lay me less open to attacks from people who think I justify mob violence. Jeze, am I glad I got this out of the way early in the top 10.
Allan you should really start this review with “DISCLAIMER: Due to a few posters inability to get over themselves, this original essay as been altered. My apologies for having to bow to fascist arguments/phony moral policing”
that would clear the mess no?
Right on target, appearing exactly as I predicted. I cannot argue on one point Allan has made with his capsule. A film I don’t EVER want to revisit but essential viewing nonetheless. Monica Belucci is astounding in her performance. What goes through an actors mind to deliver a turn like this is something that will perplex me forever. Anyway, along with HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, this is one of the most repulsive works of art I never want to see again. Bravo! Anybody wanna put money up against 2046 taking the top slot? He-he… I’m feeling lucky these days….
I would say Mulholland Drive but my luck has hit an epic rough patch.
MAURIZIO-Trust me, predicting the winners of the WORLD CUP is far easier than predicting ALLAN’s top ten. I’ve been doing it for a while and, though hard to explain, there is a rythm to this thing. I’m not kidding on this, I’VE READ EVERY CAPSULE ALLAN HAS WRITTEN for this site. I’ve scanned every countdown. I’ve questioned Sam on Allan’s tastes and opinions on certain films. I know what directors and types of cinema he generally loves and despises. Also telling: read through some of his arguments with bloggers on some of these posts and, I feel, he leaves tiny, microscopic hints. These things combined, along with giant leaps of faith and assumption point me in the directions i believe he will go.
Case in point: JOEL mentioned how he thought THE INCREDIBLES might have a chance in the remaining slots. I say NO. If you know that WALL-E already placed weeks ago, that Allan has said he feels that after TOY STORY it’s WALL-E that’s the cream of the PIXAR crop, and that he likes RATATOUILLE as the next best after it (it placed in the high 100’s), then the deducement clearly tells us that THE INCREDIBLES doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell (he even admitted that in the thread under THE PRESTIGE).
I knew of Allan’s admiration for IRREVERSIBLE, I know that Sam and he have chatted intensely about why its an important film. This film also features a classic beauty with the likes of Monica Belucci (Allan is a sucker for a pretty/sexy face) and it was a film that only the truly hardened, dedicated lifers for the art would tolerate and praise (hence, real film critic). So, knowing he has a thing for MULHOLLANDm that he’s bound to swing in one or two other surprizes before the count finalizes, and that 2046 is a film directed by one of his favorite contemporary directs (on top of him loving the film outright), I’m 99% sure, that it was safe to say IRREVERIBLE would place here, that MULHOLLAND will place in the top 5, and 2046 will be the No. 1 choice.
I could be wrong….
But, I doubt it….
ELEMENTARY, Dear Watson (Roca)….
Elementary, My Dear Watson (Roca)!
“Watson the needle!!!”
Good detective work Dennis. Now that I know Zodiac is not in Allen’s top 250, I’m curious of Mulholland’s faith. I hope your not referring to me as the Nigel Bruce version of Watson. I would find that rather offensive lol!!!!
Read your emails, Dennis, and you’ll find that you have already received a negative answer to one of those statements.
As for hints, often these hints are deliberately placed, Dennis, often cryptically, to see who has the desire to find it out. 🙂 – IT IS ELEMENTARY, but one man’s elementary is another’s Gordian Knot.
And I say that THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY might steal a position
Personally, I mostly like the aesthetic and narrative approach of the movie. I understand just how gutwrenching that scene in the tunnel is (especially considering your reservations about WWB). I’m one of the people who can admire the film without enjoying that part for one second. Far from glamorizing sexual attacks, which to a certain extent both “Straw Dogs” and “Clockwork Orange” kinda do, I think this goes as far as it can to take any and all erotic element out of the picture entirely. We’re seeing rape as it really is– not a moment of sex, but of pure, cruel violence, something that Pekinpah and Kubrick were never really able to convey correctly. Granted, it’s still VERY easy for someone with the wrong mindset to pervert what they’re watching, but that’s a consequence of showing pretty much anything of a sexual nature on film nowadays. I much prefer an ugly, but honest scene like this, than something like Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones”, which went out of its way to whitewash rape out of the story entirely.
Would the film be easier to stomach if Noe had found another way to portray that awful event? Yes, I think so, and it wouldn’t have lost too much power– he could’ve made a point of turning the camera away and forcing us to just LISTEN to the attack, he could’ve found a camera angle that portrayed it while obscuring it somewhat (a reflection, the shadows). But that tiny bit of difference is what makes up all the difference, if only in principle. Without the rape scene, it would’ve been easier for a wider audience to appreciate the rest of the film, and there is plenty to appreciate in it. But then, it just wouldn’t be the same thing.
But again, I understand your aversion to this, and don’t necessarily disagree with it entirely. Nevertheless, I have to respect the film.
Your second paragraph sums it up perfectly. I can’t imagine any woman sitting through that scene. Alienating half of humanity seems like a perverse road to travel.
Bob (and Maurizio) fabulous thoughts. I’ve always defended this film–and this argument on the rape scene– this way:
‘If you’ve made it to that scene, and can’t bear to watch and turn it off it’s somewhat hypocritical no? After all at this point in the film we’ve already seen a man killed by having his face bashed in with a fire extinguisher, and it’s no less violent then the rape sequence. So isn’t the argument then that you can stomach senseless murder, but not rape? At this point, it becomes the beauty of one of Noe’s central points.’
I don’t know why I put quotes around that, maybe because I’ve said it a few times before. That being said I won’t recommend or watch this film with certain people. It’s just not everyone’s idea of interesting cinema, and I don’t want to get into this every time. I do still think it’s essential cinema though.
Well, another film that I thought was average. I thought Noe was trying to explore what revenge means in cinematic terms, by manipulating the audience’s response to violence and revealing the cause of that violence. But somehow, it felt an exercise in vain, with Noe trying to equate two acts of violence. It is an unforgettable experience agreed. But it’s also a deliberate and needless assault on the senses.
How anyone can call this review ‘excellent” is baffling? These words are as offensive as the film: “After this, the brutality of the opening sequences illustrate perfectly how the inexcusable may be excusable under certain circumstances; vengeance is a human right, we’re told.” As to an “essential film”, what is the imperative for such a conclusion? This film is offensive to all decent men and women.
And of course we have the typical bollocks from the usual suspects:
“But again, I understand your aversion to this, and don’t necessarily disagree with it entirely. Nevertheless, I have to respect the film.”
“one of the most repulsive works of art I never want to see again. Bravo!”
I’d respond to your queries if I thought you were genuinely interested in a different point of view – say, why I thought the review was excellent or why the film was praised by Dennis (who has somehow wound up on your shit list after a couple weeks of being a “good guy”, but hey we all end up there eventually – even poor Sam, who has cleaned up after your temper tantrums like a dutiful parent, never mind that you’re a few years older than he is). But for a year and a half of patiently engaging with you, squeezing one mea culpa from you (when you, from your rocking chair on the other side of the world, accused me, who had friends in Iraq and Afghanistan, of being disengaged from those wars – because I didn’t like a Michael Moore movie quite as much as you did), and mistakenly looking the other way when you battered other people. One day I finally realized you are a troll. An intelligent, articulate troll, but a troll nonetheless. This will be the last time I feed you, but we might as well make it a full dish.
As always, you use your “values” as a smokescreen to conceal your nasty bullying streak. It’s one thing to be a bully, that’s bad enough, but to be a self-righteous one is nauseating. By the way, your constant attacks on us as if we’re all elitists is absurd. We are passionate amateurs on a relatively obscure message board. Many of us do not have professional success, a wife and kids, our own home in the suburbs. You have all this and then have the gall to play the victim against someone like Allan, who has repeatedly said that the movies saved his life. This is not the mark of martyr or a victim, but of a manipulative, oppressive bully.
I’m glad Allan likes you – it shows a thicker skin then I’ve got. I don’t like you at all. I reverse your judgment of yourself – you are a decent blogger and a wretched human being.
By the way, who’s the bigger fool, the fool who writes bad reviews and prattles on about supposedly meaningless movies, or the one who reads all of these and wastes his time scolding people he only has contempt for? You are a child in the guise of a “wise” old man. Don’t apologize to any of us – it wouldn’t be sincere. Apologize to Sam, however, for continuously slandering the mission of his site and for causing him undue stress with your inability to engage in an adult level of discourse. No amount of tinkering on the sidebar justifies that.
Wow. I too have felt this way, and resisted comment that much to Tony, but the ‘Best of 2000’s’ thread highlights it perfected. One post he says how ‘compassion’ is the true faith to have (as if no one else has it here–rather most have it in spades), indicating he’s the one that has it. Then, no kidding, less then 5 posts under that he delivers a vicious, spiteful, hateful remark to me.
It hurt at first, but then I remember my doctors advice: ‘Try and receive 3 insults a week from complete strangers”. It’s sort of an ‘Apple-a-Day’ like prescription for those wanting to remain in the throws of self-loathing.
And once more with the fascist police. Tony, I like you, but I knew you’d come down like Himmler on this one because you can’t resist the morality card. Are your favourite words in the English language “THOU SHALT NOT”?
I am NOT trying to justify vengeance and taking the law into your own hands, only saying that circumstances make it understandable, not justifiable.
Please, give it a rest.
Your words: “the inexcusable may be excusable under certain circumstances”. You are the captain of the morality police.
That’s ‘excusable’ from the point of view of those affected it. Besides which, excusable does not mean JUSTIFIABLE.
I repeat, let it rest. I’m sick of you coming here to attack everyone left right and centre and everyone being too scared to say anything because you throw the toys out of the pram and say “fuck this, I’m outta here”
You attack me I give it back. You were TOTALLY out of line. Just as was your email to Sam telling me I was out of line placing a picture of anal rape in the review totally missing the point of that particular cap and where the attention SHOULD be.
I think Tony’s argument holds no weight at all. We’re talking about the vision of a director and the way he decides to pontificate his views both thematically and visually. If we have, even in the slightest, a moral problem with the subject matter, then its the rite of the INDIVIDUAL viewer to refrain from seeing or viewing. However, it is not asked of or given ANY invitation for said opposed viewer to lambast one who ingests such work because they don’t cotten to the opposers moral beliefs. Tony, you don’t like the film, plain and simple, and for whatever reason, that’s fine. But, to say that WE or ANYONE is morally out of it for praising it moves beyond artistic criticism and reeks of personal chastisement. Allan sees this as art, he wrote a fine capsule. End of story. Its up to NONE OF US to hold our moral beliefs on him and say he, or anyone is wrong for liking it. Read the reviews before you see a film you might deam questionable and spare us the moral tirades. No offence, just my opinion.
The placing of Irreversible down at 9 says a lot. It’s an impossible film to like or it may have been higher. I hate it, but it’s magnificent. TBH, I should have had The Prestige above it at 9 and I wonder now why, when I drew the list up all those months ago, I didn’t.
interesting how this essay and thread have unraveled. This is a film I like, own, and have watched several times… it isn’t the ‘unable to have multiple viewings’ piece that so many claim, nor is is about revenge either. It’s actually a condemnation of those (as Allan hints), but it’s all in the twisting backwards narrative. While most violent films (even when condemning violence) inadvertently offer the horrific violence in the climax (a films most ‘exciting part’) here it’s reversed and the climax is one of the most beautiful, if sad, love scenes I’ve ever seen in cinema. That’s what the films about, to me at least. So the backwards narrative is thus very important–unlike MEMENTO which uses it more or less as a gimic. It offers everything we see in modern films, and mostly detest –horrific violence– and it builds AWAY from that, leaving us with a last shot of a beautiful park, in the sun, with countless pure potential characters. It’s fantastic.
But now onto that second to last last scene (and I wish the top screencap was this image, and then I conversely wonder how it would have framed the conversation), the image of these two lovers, naked. The kiss in the shower; having there lips separated by the transparent shower liner. It produces a ghost like kiss and romantic moment, and not to mention it makes the actual physical connection–the kiss– non-existent. To me that’s sadder and more moving then any 10 minute rape sequence.
This is a great film, and I’m happy that someone else out there that likes great film is able to place it this high. Kudos Allan.
_ _ _ _ _
A question to any: Would you guys consider this a horror film? I considered it for the horror countdown, and would place it high, but then I ultimately didn’t consider it a horror film so I left it out. Agree/disagree?
Jamie, what’s also great about the next-to-last sequence is that it provides a stern contrast to the rape sequence. All too often in movies, rape is treated with an element of eroticism that practically reinforces the same old “blame the victim” archetypes of our male dominant culture. Perhaps it’s a holdover from guys like Hitchcock believing in shooting your murders like love scenes and vice versa– mix up sex and violence that much and presentations of sexual violence are bound to have mixed signals– but stuff like “Straw Dogs” is hard to watch not because the attack is too much to bear the sight of, but because of the implications of pleasure/last-minute consent that guys like Peckinpah must’ve thought was “daring”. Here, it’s good to not only have a rape scene so awfully violent and abusive that it can’t be confused with anything other than what it is, but also to have a scene like this between Bellucci and Cassel, to remind us what sex– indeed, what love– looks like. It’s a simple, harrowing thing– these two things are NOT the same, and it makes all the violence we’ve seen/that is to come that much worse to think of.
One thing that nobody’s really mentioned before– if there is something dreadfully wrong with this picture, politically, it isn’t the foreground focus on rape. It’s the reinforcement of the “Gay Male Sadist” stereotype, something that I frankly thought our society had outgrown after the hoopla surrounding “Silence of the Lambs”.
Yes, Bob, this films central argument is the form in how it’s constructed. Most don’t get that, OR most turn it off and never get to the end to see this.
RE: Gay Male Sadism, great point. I have nothing to add. Though, as I pointed out that an innocent gay man gets it in the beginning, I always though NOE wasn’t that stereotypical– I’ve read it as ‘this is one really bad apple’. But I don’t think you point is incorrect, and it’s certainly worth discussing.
Yeah, but it’s REALLY easy to miss the fact that the murdered guy in the beginning isn’t Le Tenia if you aren’t paying full attention (and considering how this movie assaults your senses both aesthetically and structurally, one can’t really be blamed for overlooking it on a first viewing). Besides, even with that in mind, the whole sequence in “The Rectum” is pretty much designed to offend and intimidate the viewer, both in the substance of what’s shot (all that in-your-face full frontal nudity and gay sex acts) and the style in which it’s shot (Noe certainly doesn’t pull any directorial punches in getting you used to the backwards-sequences-filmed-as-a-single-take-plus-shaky-cam mis-en-scene).
Mind you, I’m not really accusing the director of homophobia, and to an extent I can appreciate how making Le Tenia gay serves to further de-eroticize his heterosexual rape– I just wonder if it was one layer too much, and one a little too easily misdiagnosed.
I will patiently wait for any woman to come on this site and proclaim she loves this film. I guarantee it won’t happen. Regardless of Tony’s bullying, he is right on this one.The director was practically gloating when he saw and heard about the numerous walk outs. His actions were not sincere based on several reports.
Aye Maurizio: I am sicked by this film. Actually the one on this thread I do agree with is JAFB, who pretty much corners where I stand exactly. Jamie had predicted this would appear yesterday, and I do now recall Allan’s great admiration for it, but like films by Matsamoto and Moodysson I aqm utterly repulsed and could never watch it again. I know….I know, I liked ANTOCHRIST, but I simply don’t see teh artistry here, which is hidden in exploitation of the highest order. I know Tony took no prisoners, but I can’t dispute the essence of his argument.
Still, does Allan have the right to choose this film?
You bet. It’s his call. And he has some supporters here, including our friend Kevin J. Olson.
Maurizio, I’d actually argue that this is a feminist film, consider:
“The movie, therefore, has its female end with its model of vaginal and productive sexuality, culminating in childbirth, and its male end with its model of anal and destructive sexuality, culminating in death. Between them is the “she-male middle” of the two-ended tunnel where these contrasting models of sexuality encounter or find one another and one – the female – subdued by the other, the more aggressive of the two. Besides the obvious personification of this “she-male” image in the prostitute scene, there is Alex with her gender-ambiguous name, struggling between acceptance and rejection of the male sexual paradigm. She is not an object, she tells Marcus in the bedroom scene after he suggests that he stole her from Pierre. It is the woman who makes such decisions, she tells him. But we gather from Bellucci and Cassel’s nuanced acting that her reprimand is playful and Marcus’ acceptance of it downright insincere, a suggestion confirmed by the ensuing shower scene in which Marcus kisses Alex through the shower curtain, she, wrapped in plastic, packaged, a commodity, an object.”
it’s actually much more offensive to hetero- and homo- sexual men. Here’s a great essay on the film:
http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/04/31/irreversible.html
I actually take a different stance on the shower curtain (see above), mainly I think it’s more philosophical about our inabilities to connect (physically or emotionally), but I think that point is fantastic too. In no way is this just a well made exploitation flick.
Now, would I show this to a girlfriend? Well, I suppose if I had one I would… but that’s another matter in and of itself.
Hmmm that’s an interesting outlook. I would have to see the film again to see if it holds up.
But could not the same argument be levelled at Straw Dogs or A Clockwork Orange, too, films which also feature disturbing rape sequences? Do you also dismiss them, JAFB/Maurizio/Sam, which again are both films that many women would not want to watch (the several women I met who have seen Clockwork hated it). Or how many women would you get to watch the films of Jissoji, Wakamatsu, Tanaka and the rest of the pinku culture. I disagree wholeheartedly with the morality of certain sequences, but it doesn’t make them any less powerful.
As for whether we have girlfriends, not important. I would think that any rational adult would differentiate the person they love from the films they watch. They might love Sex & the City and Desperate Housewives, which I find just as sickeningly and offensively tedious and vacuous as they might find Irreversible or Straw Dogs. What one admires as art has nothing to do with ones likes/dislikes and actual morality and it works both ways.
And one last point, how offensive would you guys have found it if shown in narrative order, with the murder at the end after the graphic rape…
yes, good points Allan.
and as another thread, can I assume that any girl I’m going to like and spend time with in a relationship would at least be progressive enough, or understand me enough to have an open mind and consider this film, or art like this. Not all women would be offended by this (it’s stereotyping to think this is the case), for every shallow girl there is, there are the types of women like Selma Blair (who agree to be in Solondz’s STORYTELLING), Tori Amos (consider her brilliant track ‘Me and a Gun’ from her fantastic first album), Valerie Solanas (who wrote the scathing, fantastic SCUM Manifesto), and painter Jenny Saville. These are the types of women I want to hang out with and date. Sinéad O’Connor types.
In other words: believe it or not some women confront these issues too, and are strong enough to do so.
I’ll say that “Straw Dogs” is more or less a complete failure at what it attempts to do, especially with Susan George’s rape-or-maybe-not sequence. Perhaps Peckinpah was trying to dramatize the terrifying, humiliating ordeal of a woman whose violation triggers an awful betrayal by her own body, but without following up on his implications, it just comes off as “she got off on it” and nothing more. He bit off more than he could chew and choked on it.
Hmmm, I have to doubt Solanos would approve of Irreversible!
Poor Andy Warhol…
But she’d consider it. That was my point.
opps, that was supposed to read:
But she’d consider it. That was my point.
You’ll have to take my word on this, Maurizio, because I prefer my anonymity at this point, but I am a woman and I love this film. I also think it is a brilliant film (some brilliant films are not films that I also love).
I also happen to have been raped (by an enraged, deranged stranger whose path I had the irreversible misfortune of crossing). My personal experience makes me appreciate the genius of this film that much more. I totally agree with earlier comments regarding how other films “whitewash” the rape scenes. And *that* is what is actually offensive to me as a viewer (as a female viewer… a rape victim viewer… but mostly as an intelligent viewer).
At some point I might actually write my own mini-review on the genius of this film. I wind up getting exhausted after spending too many paragraphs explaining why I think the rape scene alone was genius. But really, I can’t say much more than what others have already said about this film and its genius.
And of course there are perverts and crazies out there who get off on such a film. But that isn’t the fault of the film. And censoring this film won’t make the perverts go away.
I think that some men are more disturbed by the rape scene than women. And there is a bizarre paternalistic attitude among men regarding this film. Many men seem to think that women might have a harder time watching it than they do. I think this makes men feel strong in ways they just are not: protect the woman from this horrible thing. Strange idea, that. News flash to such men: we women already know about rape. Furthermore (I have to put this out there) when you are a female who lives in a violent world (and in my own case, petite and having already been brutalized by a stranger), and you choose to go out alone — to a store, a bakery, a park, etc. — you are aware that you are taking your life into your own hands. I am more aware of it now than I was before I was raped, but I was pretty darned aware before. But still, it is an awareness that women already have and in one way or another, we find a way to live our lives, knowing that it could all end very abruptly (and I mean really end. The detective at the hospital allowed that cases like mine “usually wind up in homicide.” Mine almost got there). And living (and I mean really living — not limiting ourselves) is an act of courage that women make on a regular basis and that most men really don’t understand. Who else voluntarily walks into situations knowing in advance that if someone decides to attack them, they have little to no defense? I would argue that most men don’t have to tap into courage as regularly as women do and in that way I feel like women are a lot stronger than men can imagine.
Anyway… brilliant movie.
[Oh and for the record: my attacker was eventually caught through DNA evidence and he is serving three consecutive life sentences plus fifteen years. And I have met very few men who don’t say how great they think it is that this guy will now be brutalized in prison. And I have never shared that feeling on any level. The thought of violence/revenge sickens me even more than it did before I was brutalized in that way. But Noé puts this whole issue of male aggression and “revenge” out there, so I’ll drop it.]
bump.
Brilliant, personal comment here. I hope you’ve read the essay I think to elsewhere in this thread. It’s a brilliant analysis of this film, brilliant enough to at least sit along your comment here.
The comments about men wanting to censor this film, or act as protectors in being against this film is so succinct and accurate I’m blush that I was able to express it even while feeling it. I feel this is clearly one of the main points of the film, and the reason it’s told in reverse.
Again, nice job and thanks for being open. It must have been difficult.
Hard to argue against you based on your personal experiences. If you took something positive away from it than that is great. We all see films through our own unique filters. Yours is very brave and beyond my scope to comprehend. Great comment.
I am deeply, deeply saddened by the way some of this thread has gone, and when I get back this afternoon from my trip to Manhattan to see DESPERATE and HE WALKED BY NIGHT I will hope that this was just a bad dream, and all will be well.
It’s true, I have a deep regard for my friend Tony d’Ambra, and hope to meet him one day in person. I have a fondness for him that I can’t describe here that has been forged by a long and emotional affiliation. Yeah, I know Tony is opinionated and often harsh, but deep down he is a good-hearted soul, and one whose e mails I have endlessly delighted in.
If this latest thread causes a parting of the ways with he and WitD in all ways, (I suspect this is exactly what will happen) let it be said here and now and forever more (as long as the blood flows through my veins) that I will remain this man’s friend for the rest of my life, and that I will continue communication with him.
The matter of his advice, his ability to have the site’s ratings rise, the beauty of his work on the sidebar and elsewhere has always been appreciated, but his friendship is really all that matters at teh end of the day.
Here’s a toast to my dear friend Down Under, now and forever.
Listen I’m not a saint by any means. I’m just wondering if we were all females how this discussion would be playing out. That’s my only argument.
Well Maurizio, obviously not all women would find this film as offensive as you do. Obviously, Monica Bellucci read the script and understood it’s points rather well. She’s a woman no?
Fair point Jaimie.
I wanted to bump this question I posed:
“A question to any: Would you guys consider this a horror film? I considered it for the horror countdown, and would place it high, but then I ultimately didn’t consider it a horror film so I left it out. Agree/disagree?”
No, not a horror film. A horror film’s modus operandi is to scare the shit out of you. Irreversible unsettles and perhaps sickens you, but horror is not what it sets out to achieve.
No, primarily because the backwards-narrative structure is rather counterintuitive to any idea of horror. If you want to scare somebody, it’s all about putting them in suspense, stoking their curiosity to see what happens next on a very primal, immediate level with an intense emotional connection and character-identification– Will the girl get away? Will the killer get away with it? By unspooling in reverse, it becomes more of a mystery, just like “Memento”. You can’t really frighten somebody by letting them know ahead of time about what happened/what’s to come, but you can certainly stoke their curiosity in another way.
thanks, my feelings are in accordance with the two of yours. thanks.
A question– would you consider “Fire Walk With Me” a horror film, dwelling as it does on a first-person account of Laura Palmer’s family trauma? Does the foreknowledge of her doom magnify the terror of the film, or mitigate it?
I think most of Lynch (when he’s acting like Lynch) is horror, even if it wouldn’t be filed in the ‘Horror’ section at your local Blockbuster.
Same goes for films like the Japanese shock film(s) THE GUINEA PIG series (specifically the first two), Nacho Cerda’s AFTERMATH (and the other one GENESIS), and something like THE TENANT. All unsettle you in slightly different ways then IRREVERSIBLE (it’s really all about structure). But as I’ve said before I consider the great Japanese A FACE OF ANOTHER to be a horror film (and I remember Bob saying he thought it was straight sci-fi, which it definitely could be).
Yeah, I don’t think “Face of Another” really works as horror that well. It’s too distant, too abstract a film. However, it works with similarly themed movies that are easier fits for horror– “Eyes Without a Face” and Frankenheimer’s “Seconds”. I wouldn’t call it horror, but it belongs in the conversation with those two movies.
I think FACE OF ANOTHER is a horror film because two easy points, (1) the man whose face is transplanted has bad intentions (and is rather angry) the entire film, so he plays almost as a classic ‘monster’. (2) He murders a man at the end. The whole tone of the film is somewhat scary and ominous as well. But I’m fine with others not seeing it as horror though. In a similar way I consider FISTS IN POCKETS horror as well.
The two you mention are also horror films to me, just not in the same league (heck stratosphere) as A FACE OR ANOTHER. EYES WITHOUT A FACE is decent, SECONDS I think ultimately is just average or so.
Is Tatsua Nakadai’s character in “Face” monstrous? I’m not entirely certain of that. If anyone might be described as such, perhaps it’s the mad scientist who agreed to use him as a guinea pig for his own selfish experimental needs. Nakadai himself might fit into a fairly standard archetype of the monster created by the cruel fate of an accident, but his primary urge isn’t to kill and wreak havoc. Instead, he entertains a very basic, intimate desire to test the fidelity of his wife, ironically, with himself. It’s far closer to a melodrama or erotic thriller than it is any kind of horror. Still, I maintain that it fits best under the sci-fi umbrella.
As for the other two, I feel the opposite. “Seconds” is very easily one of Frankenheimer’s greatest works, a grand piece of modern-paranoia sci-fi horror. Rock Hudson is absolutely perfect both in casting and performance as a man who trades away his real identity for a younger, more virile self. James Wong Howe’s cinematography is perhaps the best of his career– and considering the guy shot “Hangmen Also Die” for Fritz Lang, that’s saying something. I really can’t get enough of this movie, whereas “Eyes” is merely a quaint, pleasurable gothic mad-scientist horror to me. I appreciate the way it succeeds in making us empathize with horrible people, but there’s not quite enough style to make up for the premise. At times, its clinical mis-en-scene really works, but mostly it just drains the life out of it. It’s still good, mind you, just not quite up in the pantheon with Teshigahara or Frankenheimer– those two are essentials.
A parting anecdote.
In my early 20s I worked in a small office, where like most of the population we had a mix of races and nationalities. A dumb blonde circulated a sheet of racist cartoons and jokes. As a “moral fascist” I confronted her. She ran to the boss and complained I had been rude, and I was hauled over the coals – no mention was made of course of the material she had distributed.
As for insults and rudeness MovieMan, you get the Oscar. There has been no more venomous or personal attack anywhere on this site.
It is amusing that taking a moral position and steadfastly sticking to is seen as fascist. Of course making unsupported claims of what is excellence and essential are fine.
For the record, I invite Sam and Allan to share with you what I have done for them both over the past 18 months.
I have no problem with you taking moral stances, but the insult I referenced (in the ‘Best of 2000’s’ thread) had nothing to do with anything you mention here. You just too a personal, venomous cheap shot. If you don’t think that was the case, then ‘cheers!’ have a good one.
Also if you have a problem with this films moral stance, why make your post most specifically about Allan, and Allan’s essay?
opps, ‘You just too a personal…’ should be ‘You just took a personal…’
Tony: I have conveyed in public (and in private) of your remarkable contributions to this site, by way of physical labor, advice, statistical appraisals, and many priceless comments, and guidance.
Your friendship however, means far more to me than anything you have contibuted here, which has been extensive.
Tony has done a lot for me and the site, no question, but I felt yesterday’s personal attack deeply because it was accusing me of things I most resolutely am not and doing so in such a high-handed manner. Yes, some of the insults that went later went too far and I stayed out of it after defending my case, but I just wish Tony hadn’t by leaving done exactly what I said he would. It reduces it to a quod erat demonstrandum and he’s worth more than that. It’s like the Python sketch gone mad; Tony strides into an office and demands “I’d like to have an argument, please”, gets it, then walks off as it gets out of hand. It reminds me of that pants-ripping.leg kicking scene in You’re Darn Tootin’, which Stan starts and that moves out of once pandemonium has been reached.
Tony, irrespective of what happens, and you know you’re always welcome in my email inbox and even in my house if you were ever over here, but you CANNOT make those sort of comments as you did yesterday to me without expecting a defence. You effectively accused me of glorifying mob violence and lynch law. There is a big difference between excusable, understandable and justifiable. This “QUOTE – YOUR WORDS” mallarkey was just out of order and read like a judge meting out sentence after putting on the black cap.
Scenario – a man finds out that his daughter has been raped and beaten nearly to death. He knows where the culprit is and seeks him out and goes after him with the intention of jilling him. What is this act?
UNDERSTANDABLE? Perfectly, you’re not a parent if you don’t think of it.
EXCUSABLE? A moot point, but in his eyes and those who knew the girl in question, perfectly.
JUSTIFIABLE? No, that word is a derivative of justice and that must always be adherent to the law.
Yet I challenge anyone to be dispassionate if such a heinous crime happened to someone they cared for or loved. No, I may not have a girlfriend at this moment – looking like me and spending as much time watching movies as I do that’s no surprise (but there are other private reasons I won’t go into that make it a painful subject to recall – suffice to say that train has passed through my platform). However, I have two close female cousins and several close female friends and, if anything like this happened to them, I hate to think how I’d feel. The thought terrifies me.
As a matter of fact, when I first saw Irreversible I was sickened by it and didn’t like it one bit. It’s only on a second viewing, removed from the initial response by knowing what was coming, that I raised it to greatness. Noe is out to shock, no doubt, but so was Ken Russell thirty years ago and his The Devils remains one of the greatest films about mass hysteria ever made and still a hot potato in that the deep south conglomorates that own WB refuse to allow its release to DVD. Irreversible shakes us out of our seats by challenging our emotions, making us think “yes, we’re sickened” but Noe knows that many of those sickened would cheer the scenes leading up to them going to get La Tenia is the film had been showed in chronological order and then been dismayed when the wrong person was bludgeoned to death. people accuse him of glorifying violence and dwelling sadistically on the rape, but I ask his detractors – if that were all he wanted to achieve he would have had a much bigger impact showing the film chronologically, with happy lovemaking followed by brutal rape followed by savage attempt at vengeance and the anger that would have been felt at killing the wrong man. He’s not just out to repulse, that’s merely a side-effect, not his purpose.
By showing that scene first he jolts us, then takes us back as if to show how tranquility can change to feral violence. It’ll never happen to us, we think, and yet tell that to the parents of the five victims of Steve Wright (see essay on Five Daughters a few weeks ago), tell that to any one of the victims’ families recently in my native Cumbria. The rape was horrendous to sit through, yet that one shot, pictured above, is part of the problem. Noe is always holding the film up to ourselves and saying “would you have turned back, would you have helped?” We talk about dispassionate, but that sort of apathy is equally the heart of the problem. We live in a world where people don’t care enough to help, they just walk away. In the words of Malcolm Tucker – NMFP (Not My Fucking Problem).
I think monica bellucci was coached in the rape scene by her good friend roman polanski ,remember the perv that raped and sodomized a 13 year girl. monica is one of polanski supporters and protectors.
I have heard so much about this movie but still haven’t watched it. It does look very brutal and graphic, maybe I can pluck up the courage in the future to watch it.
i love you