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HyperionX963
Review of IRREVERSIBLE
Or
Le Temps Detruit Tout
[Author’s Note: This HyperionX is a movie review, which was supposed to be Movie-Hype00966. However, due to the graphic nature of the film, I had no choice but to put it here. I know I preach over and over that if you come to HyperionX you have been warned, but I need to say again: this film is difficult to watch and to read about. It includes graphic sexual violence, and I discuss this in detail. No hard feelings if you want to sit this review out.]
IRREVERSIBLE opens with the credits running quickly backward, the titles flashing in strobe. It is a sensory assault, and some leftover fragment of animal instinct tells you to get the hell out while you can.
Listen to that feeling, gentle reader, and heed it well. Turn the movie off, or descend into nightmare.
IRREVERSIBLE is the most controversial film of the last decade, and the infamy continues to grow. Hundreds of people walked out at the
You can see why a movie connoisseur would be drawn to IRREVERSIBLE. What could be so shocking that cinephiles hardened to French filmmaking along with cynical critics are walking out?
The supposed cause for the exodus is two key scenes, and we might as well throw them out in the open now, so you can mentally prepare, as discussing IRREVERSIBLE, it’s message and meaning necessitates an examination.
To wit: in the second “scene,” there is a horrific beating of a homosexual man that continues long after he’s already dead. Even worse, the shock lance of the whole controversy surrounding IRREVERSIBLE, is a nine minute rape scene.
To hear celebrated auteur-director Gaspar Noé tell it, IRREVERSIBLE is anti-sexual violence, and in no way promotes that kind of pornographic excess. I had my doubts, and part of my curiosity with the film centered on what I call “The Ecclesiastes Effect.”
Anyone who’s ever read Ecclesiastes can’t help but notice that the first 11 and a half chapters are melancholy philosophy on the futility of life. (11:8 ends with “All is vanity!”) Immediately after that is a complete 180, and suddenly the doom and gloom is replaced with, “All that will happen to you if you don’t follow God’s Commandments.” (My translation.)
Some see that as sincere, but most biblical scholars recognize that the last six verses are penned by another author, a later scribe perhaps troubled at the negative tone.
Or a more practical example: director Oliver Stone claims that the point of his movie NATURAL BORN KILLERS is how the Media sensationalizes violence by making killers into celebrities. It’s 100% true, but one tends to doubt the sincerity of Stone’s satirization. In other words: how can you claim to condemn what you are clearly exulting?
Going into IRREVERSIBLE I had severe skepticism that a movie with a 9 minute rape scene could be anything but exploitative.
Following the credits is a quiet discomforting scene, two naked men discussing God knows what. “Time destroys all things,” we’re told, in what will become the thesis of IRREVERSIBLE. The camera never stops rotating, circling, gyrating, and we instinctively know this is one of those “art” films you’re either going to love or hate.
But there’s no time to think. Immediately we move to the preceding scene (as we do for the entire film, done totally backwards). Police pull two men out of a nightclub called Rectum, one in handcuffs, the other on a stretcher with a broken arm. The camera continues to rotate continually. I’m starting to tilt my head to keep my balance.
Blink. We are in the scene before, and see the same two men enter the nightclub. As the name would suggest, a gay club, but like nothing you’ve ever seen.
This is not the “safe” gay packaging that
No, friends: these are faggots, a term they themselves would use if they bothered thinking about anything beyond the next painful fuck. These are the men who’d just as soon rip your asshole out as look at you, and given half a second they’ll do both. These are not shrink-wrapped color-coded happy homos. These are the fags your mom is terrified of, the ones she doesn’t even imagine exist.
Into this world we plunge, a dark cavern, a red haze, hand-held camera and danger around every corner. The two men are looking for “Le Tenia,” we don’t know why, but it seems clear they don’t want to exchange recipes.
If that were all, the gyration, the lighting, the fear, this scene would rank as high as anything you’ve ever see for moody atmospherics. But Gaspar Noé has one more trick up his sleeve. There is a sound that won’t quit, that gets under your skin, relentless and unyielding. After ten seconds it’s annoying. After two minutes you can’t think.1
There is nowhere to hide as we follow our two people, no way to make sense of what is happening. The backwards plot ensures that we are in the dark for now, and can only go along for the ride.
Where we are forces us to examine our ugliest stereotypes and preconceptions about homosexuality. I assume most of you consider yourself self-actualized and open-minded on this issue. I certainly do. Yet I say without shame that I found myself with terrible thoughts as I watched, not knowing what I was seeing, not knowing what any of it meant. I think straight men take comfort in the idea, even at the unconscious level, that homosexuals are somehow weak and effeminate, and don’t pose a threat. To see men who would in all likelihood rape me to death (since Hyperion would go down swinging) is a jarring uncomfortable experience, a blow to my smug ivory tower of liberal acceptance.
The capper comes, not in the way you’d expect. Truth told, it has nothing to do with gay-bashing, and there’s a minute or so when we’re not sure who’s going to get killed. The death itself is so over-the-top that we become numb. No, it is what leads up to it that shatters the assumptions we so prize. And if that were the movie, we’d have quite an experience, but we’re barely fifteen minutes in.
As we continue to regress this evening, it becomes eventually clear that we’re following Marcus and Pierre. Marcus is enraged, and
The scenes continue this way until we finally see a jovial Marcus and Pierre coming out of a building. They see EMTs loading a stretcher into an ambulance; a woman so badly beaten we can only tell gender by the long dark hair matted with blood. This is obviously Marcus’s girlfriend, and the fog finally lifts.
This moment in the film marks the first point of real knowledge, and if we could take time to examine our feelings, we’d be conflicted. What we have witnessed thus far is a Monster, but that Monster is Marcus. The chaotic beginning in Rectum has no heroes, but Marcus is the agitator in everything. Whatever sexual deviance might occur in that place (and no one enters who doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into), Marcus is the one who brings the violence crashing down so suddenly.
To see Marcus’s reason is jarring because it hits so close to home. I ask you as a red-blooded man (or woman) worth your salt: if someone you cared about was horrifically raped and beaten, where would your heart lie? Would the bloodlust overcome you? Would immediate violence be your preferred solution? As the movie progresses we learn that Marcus is drunk and high, but is that the excuse? Stone-cold sober, might not you be inclined to take the same steps?
I know I might. It is that feeling that caused me emotional vertigo. I have been watching this monster hurt, threaten and badger everyone to get his prey. Now I’m faced with the idea that he might be me.
The next scene shows us Monica Bellucci exiting the same apartment building. For the longest time we cannot see her face, but to anyone familiar with international films this is her. She’s wearing a satiny pink-silver dress that hugs her like a lover’s caress. (More on her in a few moments.)
We follow this yet-unnamed woman from behind (all the scenes are filmed in extended fifteen-twenty minute shots), like some voyeur, stalking her, and we see the woman ask for directions to the subway. She’s told by hookers to take the underpass, as it’s safer. Even if you didn’t know the apex of this film, instinct alone would tell you that a single girl in an obviously bad part of town who doesn’t know where she’s going perhaps shouldn’t venture into an dark underpass. That sounds like some sort of blame, and it’s not. It’s merely the same emotion we have in a horror film when the heroine creeps up the dark stairs. “Don’t go there!” we want to shout. Except in the horror film we know it’s fake. Here, we’re all too real.
So now we’ve come to the scene. As most of you should know by now, I have extreme feelings when it comes to rape. I am uncomfortable with seeing it depicted on screen. Yet I am no Pollyanna, and understand that sexual violence is part of life, and seeing it can make the story more powerful. Think of THE ACCUSED, Larry Clark’s KIDS or BULLY, or even PULP FICTION. All the films are enhanced by our understanding of sexual violence and how it affects the characters.
(I have more of a problem with a film like THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, which in my opinion makes no attempt to judge the characters who engage in rape and torture for sport. If anything we are supposed to root for them, and while I don’t call for censorship, where the value is in that beyond fetish-porn?)
I realize I’m stalling, because I don’t want to talk about this scene. Even writing the preceding paragraphs has made me ill again. I have to back up a bit and tell you that by the time the gay-club scene is over I felt sick to my stomach. The violence wasn’t any worse than other films, and while the camera was shaky, I have a pretty strong stomach. I felt like there was something else going on, beyond just my inability to handle things.
It turns out there was.
Gaspar Noé underlies that audio I was telling you about with noise set at 28 Hz. It’s ultra low frequency, and barely audible to humans. The other effects to people are disorientation, vertigo, dizziness and nausea.
In other words, It is impossible to watch the first half hour and not feel queasy, even ill. The effect is so strong and imprinting that I have it now just thinking about IRREVERSIBLE. (In retrospect, this effect probably accounted more for the walk-outs than the film’s graphic nature.)
One could argue that Gaspar Noé is assaulting us with this kind of trick, but I think something else is going on here.
But again I realize I’m stalling, so let’s get to this. As the unnamed woman (later to be known as Alex) walks into the underpass, we have the same red light. We see another woman in an altercation with a man; a few seconds makes it clear he’s her pimp.
Alex tries to avoid the situation, but is caught by the man, who sneers at her couture dress in this underbelly of town. He declares his intention to rape her, and if there was any doubt this crime is motivated by power over sexual desire, the rapist tells Alex that he will rape her virgin ass, ruining her for the rest of her life.
The rape really is nine minutes. The camera is static; all of the director’s tricks thus far employed are thrown aside. We see this man on top of Alex, raping her, and see Alex fighting back, never once giving into the violent assault.
As I watched—not wanting to, but determined that if I’d come this far I might as well finish it—two thoughts came into my head. The first was that the rapist was NOT the man killed in the club Rectum, but was the man standing next to him. This thought alone could generate an entire column, but I trust you see the implications from what we discussed earlier, and can form your own conclusions.
The second thought is that by making the scene so long, we are desensitized to it. What is shocking and horrific becomes less so, to the point of mundanity. I actually felt guilty that I wasn’t more freaked out. Maybe it was because of the build up, or that I’d girded myself for it this whole time, but by the end of the rape I was no longer anything but numb.
And then the man beats her within an inch of her life.
At this point we’re still only halfway through the film. I want to finish the narrative quickly so we may return to what conclusions we must draw.
As the movie continues to regress into the evening, we see Marcus, Alex and Pierre at a party. For those of you not aware, Monica Bellucci is categorically the most sexual woman in film today. She’s beautiful, but it’s more than the still image can convey (although I am happy to do so.)
If she were American she would be our biggest star. (Most Americans have only seen her briefly as Persephone in THE MATRIX RELOADED.) There is no way to describe how sexual she is, and I have never seen her more so that at this party. The dress I mentioned is a part of her, moving with her as she dances sensuously to the music.
Yet, what might be the most erotic scene of the year is ruined by the knowledge of what is to come. Obviously a woman should be able to dress as she wishes, and go wherever she wishes. Yet in the real world we also understand that what is permissible is not always wise, and the understanding of what is to come—both the unspeakable violence done to Alex and the aftermath hunt—rob the scene of eroticism.
Instead we see Marcus and Alex as a couple---with problems, but still in love.
As we continue backward, the gyrations vanish. The low-frequency sounds disappear, and even the lighting softens. We have a much more warm conventional film. Eventually we get back to Alex and Marcus in bed together, naked, trusting, in love. The two actors are together in real life, and are clearly comfortable with each other in a way that isn’t possible to convey in normal movies. They move around the apartment at ease with themselves and their bodies, preparing for the evening, enjoying their union on so many levels. Marcus playfully tells Alex he wants to fuck her up the ass, which might be erotic if the movie played forward, but like so much of the last half of the film, is now haunting and sad.
We find out Alex is pregnant, and happy to be so, and we finally end the film with Alex in the park watching children at play. The gyrating returns, and the sound, though briefly. The screen turns white almost as if the film reel is unspooling, and I suspect there are images in the white-hot strobe just before the words from the opening return: “Time Destroys All Things.”
So what to make of this film? Some have argued that it is pornographic. You recall I had the same fears, and even during the pivotal scene worried that the extreme length made it exploitative. After some thought, I conclude differently now, for three reasons:
First, pornography has the sex or violence as its payoff; the money shot. By frontloading the two scenes of violence, and then forcing us to watch the rest of the movie and see what led to it all, we don’t stumble out from the theatre, alone with our dark thoughts. Instead we see how fragile life really is, how easily innocence can be shattered, and how perhaps time really can destroy all things.
Secondly, a woman who lives through a violent attack has to endure. Who am I to complain about the time length because I’m uncomfortable? Think of what she’s going through. Should we not be as uncomfortable as possible as well?
Perhaps most importantly is that 28mz. When I first researched it I was pissed, and felt violated. Again, though, how brilliant is that move? Here we are watching a movie where lives are violently ruined, and we complain about some queasiness?
More importantly, the effects of the lighting, the camera gyrations and the ULF. sounds make us sick. In other words, it is physically impossible to view the rape and be sexually gratified. I don’t care how deviant you are: I don’t think it can be done. In a way it reminds me of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, how we are programmed to be repulsed, if we weren’t already.
In that vein, everything comes crashing together. This film is anti sexual violence, perhaps more than any movie ever made.2
We are left with no other way to look at the evening than how quickly the line between safety and danger can be crossed. We are bruised and battered, forced to confront that which is ugly within us, within all of us.
I can’t possibly recommend this film. How could I, when even someone untouched by sexual violence in their own life will be sickened by what they see. But I do think there is a method to the madness, and I do think IRREVERSIBLE is worthwhile. There is a power here that goes far beyond entertainment, beyond even “art.” This is true cinema, where our sensory perceptions are manipulated and we are transformed. Monica Bellucci is the bravest mainstream actress alive, and whatever his motivations, Gaspar Noé has crafted an absolute masterpiece.
Notes
1 There is no way to adequately explain the effect of the sound, but if you would like to experience a few seconds of it now, go to http://www.nord-ouest.com/site/irreversible/. Click on the image, and when a new window opens up, click on “PARCOURS” over on the right. You can move your cursor around to see more if you wish, but keep clicking; four more times should do it. A sound will start, lasting about 5 seconds. You’ll know what I mean when you hear it. Try to imagine that sound for 30 straight minutes.
2 This didn’t stop several European countries from marketing the movie as an erotic thriller.
© 2000-2012 by Hyperion All Rights Reserved. I'm guessing most of you are too stupid to read this far down, so I feel no compunction about bragging to my friends about your wife/girlfirend/mother/irish setter