Irreversible Gaspar Noe
Gaspar Noe's Irreversible (2002) is a love letter to the word horror. I'm convinced the film stock was fed through the devil's ass before it got to the camera (provided it wasn't shot on DV). If you think horror films can't be affective anymore, think again; Irreversible is a rape revenge flick that beats the shit out of you, and then it allows you to beat the shit out of yourself.
Irreversible plays chronologically backwards. A nauseous tracking shot leads us through The Rectum (an S&M club). Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel) are hunting the man who raped Marcus's girlfriend Alex (Monica Belucci). As they move through the filth of the French underground, the electronic noises fill the soundtrack with the aural likeness of an elevator trying to crash over and over again. Marcus gets his arm violently broken, and he is nearly sodomized by the same assailant. Pierre moves into the frame to stop the rape by bashing the attacker's head in with a fire extinguisher. When Marcus's arm is broken, the viewer has been shoved; but while Pierre turns a man's face into bloody mud, white knuckles visually pound the viewer as the lower jaw of the man shakes below a pile of crunched skull. It all happens in one camera angle, no edits, and this is where the responsibility becomes the viewer's; you can turn away if you want, at one moment I reached for the remote, but I just didn't get there. The same trick occurs when Alex is raped in a crimson soaked tunnel by Le Tenia (The Tapeworm). For ten minutes we become participants, as the camera doesn't move; again, all responsibility is in the hands of the viewer.
After the rape, Irreversible turns into a Francois Truffaut love story (e.g. Jules and Jim). Pierre and Marcus are in love with Alex; their banter is humorous and uncomfortable, but the horror of Irreversible has not ceased. Alex lies naked with Marcus; they have sex; she showers; again, her beautiful body is violated, but it is the viewer who violates as the voyeur of the film. All in all, the viewer is not supposed to visually enjoy Alex's gorgeous nudity; after all, we take part in the rape, as we don't look away.
Irreversible plays chronologically backwards. A nauseous tracking shot leads us through The Rectum (an S&M club). Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel) are hunting the man who raped Marcus's girlfriend Alex (Monica Belucci). As they move through the filth of the French underground, the electronic noises fill the soundtrack with the aural likeness of an elevator trying to crash over and over again. Marcus gets his arm violently broken, and he is nearly sodomized by the same assailant. Pierre moves into the frame to stop the rape by bashing the attacker's head in with a fire extinguisher. When Marcus's arm is broken, the viewer has been shoved; but while Pierre turns a man's face into bloody mud, white knuckles visually pound the viewer as the lower jaw of the man shakes below a pile of crunched skull. It all happens in one camera angle, no edits, and this is where the responsibility becomes the viewer's; you can turn away if you want, at one moment I reached for the remote, but I just didn't get there. The same trick occurs when Alex is raped in a crimson soaked tunnel by Le Tenia (The Tapeworm). For ten minutes we become participants, as the camera doesn't move; again, all responsibility is in the hands of the viewer.
After the rape, Irreversible turns into a Francois Truffaut love story (e.g. Jules and Jim). Pierre and Marcus are in love with Alex; their banter is humorous and uncomfortable, but the horror of Irreversible has not ceased. Alex lies naked with Marcus; they have sex; she showers; again, her beautiful body is violated, but it is the viewer who violates as the voyeur of the film. All in all, the viewer is not supposed to visually enjoy Alex's gorgeous nudity; after all, we take part in the rape, as we don't look away.
posted by Bradley P. Guillory at 11:42 AM
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