DIRECTED BY: Gaspar Noé
FEATURING: Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel, Philippe Nahon
PLOT: A reflection on the destructive nature of time, centered around a ruthless sexual abuse and a vicious revenge.
COMMENTS: First things first: I balk at calling Gaspar Noé’s classic Irreversible a “weird” movie. Experimental, brutal, shocking, or thought-provoking are all more suitable adjectives. Its “weirdest” element, apart from its anxiety-inducing quasi-infrasound and some improvised dialogue, is perhaps that the movie exists in two versions: a disorienting one where the story is told in reverse and a clearer one, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2019, that retains the chronological order of the events.
Another aspect worth bearing in mind is Noé’s intention to blur the boundaries between the real and the fictional. At the time of filming, leads Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel, both of whom offer superb performances as young couple Alex and Marcus, were actually married As a result, their scenes together feel tender and sweet, and they are imbued with genuine love—a stark contrast to the gruesome violence pervading most of the film.
Because, despite all the stylistic experimentation, Irreversible remains grounded in disturbingly realistic ideas. In an interview, Noé bleakly revealed that the film was meant to represent the fact “that people are animals who control themselves to survive in a civilized environment, and not the other way around.” In effect, while the movie is far from being a gorefest, the atavistic behavior that characters display in some of the sequences is chilling. When the outbursts of violence take place, the viewer can’t help but stare in astonishment at the dark underbelly of human nature presented on screen. The horror of the film lies in these very actions and in the realization that they can be triggered any time under the right circumstances.
The central conflict of the movie (spoilers ahead) exemplifies such unhinged violence. It is also literally the central scene, the one that doesn’t change its location irrespective of which version of the film one watches, and the one that is hotly debated among commentators who are undecided whether it’s one of the most powerful scenes in cinema history or simply gratuitous onscreen shock value. It is a crude, ten-minute static shot depicting Belluci’s rape and beating in an underground tunnel, whose red walls become a symbol of hell. This scene constitutes the trigger for Cassel’s revenge on the perpetrator, but it also works on a level beyond the screen, the long static shot directly making us viewers witness to a cruel reality, rendering us impotent before it, just as the victim is.
The other gruesome scene of the film takes place at the beginning or end, depending on the version, at a gay bar called The Rectum (fans of psychoanalysis may find links to the above-mentioned tunnel), where the rapist, referred to as Le Tenia, is blithely clubbing and having fun with other men. Cassel and his friend burst into the bar and, after looking for Le Tenia in rooms where diverse sexual encounters take place, they viciously crush the face of a clubber they believe to be the rapist. By having viewers behold such a gruesome scene at the beginning, Noé shows us Cassel and his friend as violent, rage-fueled monsters. Yet, by the end the viewer fully understands the men’s reasons for going on that vengeful rampage, even if it was futile and leads to their becoming criminals like Le Tenia.
Inhuman actions and their consequences are essential to Noé’s message and explain the anti-chronological nature of the original version. The experience of rape and the time-altering characteristics of the trauma it causes account for the reverse structure of the movie, which opens up manifold interpretations: the future always holds something terrible; we’re better off blissfully ignorant of it and should be content with a happily banal present instead; the impulse to violence lies dormant in every human heart until the occasion arises. Retribution comes before crime, albeit at the risk of misdirection—in their quest for revenge, our antiheroes embody Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous aphorism: “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you”.
It goes without saying that Irreversible brings to the fore the violent side of hetero-patriarchy. The complex relationships between male and female characters and their motivations are no doubt material for long essays, and not topics to make light of. For the sake of succinctness, however, it’s worth mentioning that a woman becomes the rape victim of a man who in turn—the movie suggests—is sexually frustrated because he can’t belong to heteronormative society, thus leading him to vent his anger on the woman. Poignantly, Belucci’s Alex is both a human subject with aspirations and concerns, and the object of Le Tenia’s hatred, since she reminds him of his failure to be part of that society. These thorny issues led to controversy at the time of release, with critics reportedly calling the movie out for including misogynistic, homophobic, and xenophobic dialogue. As is almost always the case with transgressive fiction, such dialogue does not necessarily reflect the artist’s mindset, but does reflect ongoing social problems and latent attitudes.
Like all transgressive art, Irreversible is uncomfortable, brutal, and merciless in its depiction of rape and violence, but it’s also an important film that goes where few have dared—right into the heart of human depravity. Some scenes will be too much to bear for some viewers, whereas others may conclude the savagery actually makes Noé’s social critique stronger. Whether in reverse or not—although I’d recommend the earlier backwards version—Irreversible remains a deeply disquieting piece of cinema that is still relevant twenty years later.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: