Irreversible - Seen it? SPOILERS, I assume...

Cafe Society
1

Okay,

SPOILERS! (although this is reported in every article about this movie). So this French movie is the big scandal of the year because, apparently, it shows a graphic, disgusting murder, a graphic, disgusting rape, and the soundtrack uses deep bass tones to upset peoples’ stomachs, but apparently there is enough artistic merit to the point being made that it is worth seeing or at least discussing.

Has anyone seen it? Feel free to spoil me:

  • Is the murder graphic and disgusting? Maybe compare it to a more famous movie - like a Scorsese movie?

  • Is the rape graphic and disgusting? I have read it is an anal rape filmed in one shot over 9 minutes - is it like those other recent French movies - ummm, Romance, I think is one - where the sex actually takes place, or is it more like Psycho, where it is all in the editing and angles? With an actress as beautiful as Monica Bellucci, is there any titillation, or is it just brutal and disgusting - was the director trying to make you look and punish you for looking at the same time?

  • Is the sound track all that stomach upsetting?

  • Is the point made really worth making and thinking about, or is the director just getting off on shocking his audience?

Movies like this walk a fine line - I hate going in thinking that there is hope for art, only to find out it was just “hey, look, I can shock you and make you feel lousy about yourself”. Any insights you can share would be great…

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Don’t know whether I’ll go see it myself, it may be a while before you get a response (IIRC, it just opened in NY today). However, here’s a defense of the film that also doesn’t pull punches in representing (non-explicitly) how brutal the film is. Scroll down a page to find it.

3

This just opened in locally, and I saw it this weekend. SPOILERS ahoy, without boxes, since the thread title mentions 'em.

The comparison that springs to mind is the famous head-vise scene in Casino. In Irréversible, a man’s head is beaten in with a fire extinguisher. Slowly. In great detail. It’s the second most harrowing scene in the movie, after…

There’s no insertion shot, and the actors weren’t actually having sex. Other than that, it’s pretty graphic and disgusting. Additional detail: it’s made clear through dialogue that it’s anal rape. The camera, which has been quite active through the movie up to this point, sits down for a rock-steady view of the scene; you’re forced to watch or close your eyes.

Bellucci’s performance is heartbreaking. And the rape itself isn’t titillating at all (unless, I suppose, you’re into that in general); Bellucci is wearing a sheer dress beforehand that leaves little of her body to the imagination, so for a minute or so during that scene you might be titillated. Then she’s assaulted, and it’s not at all sexy. It’s repugnant.

I was less disturbed by the soundtrack than by the vertiginous camera moves throughout the first half of the movie. It reminded me of Breaking the Waves or Blair Witch Project in that regard.

It’s not really an either/or dicotomy, is it? Nóe obviously enjoys getting a rise out of people, both in his press commentary and in the film itself. But I think that, in addition to being an amazing work of exploitation film, Irréversible is a serious exploration of some philosophical issues. Of course, the philosophy is a variation on nihilism, and I don’t know that it’s as successful as a film of ideas as it is as a film of sensory shocks, but it’s worth seeing if you have the stomach for you.

If the words “nine-minute rape scene” give you any pause, though, you should think twice (or three or four or fifteen) times before going. It’s raw. I had bad dreams about it last night, and I can’t remember ever before having nightmares about movies I’ve seen.

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Katherine Monk, film critic for CBC radio here in Canada, said on air last weekend that it was a “disgusting piece of sensationalist trash”. As for details about the rape scene, she mentioned that Bellucci has her head brutally smashed against the pavement repeatedly.
She saw it at Cannes (I think), and the director was present. He got up in front of everyone before the screening and acknowleged that it was a disturbing film, but claimed that there was a payoff at the end, so therefore people who walked out would be missing out.
Monk said she stayed in good faith and afterwards, wished she’d walked out. She implied that the “payoff” was “isn’t it too bad because they really wanted a baby”.
She was pretty bitter about it all.

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I’d meant to add that, after being raped, Bellucci is beaten into a coma.

Online critic Theo P.'s comments start out:

He lays out a number of themes that demonstrate that the movie is more than just sensationalist trash – although I don’t buy all of his arguments, they certainly make sense to me.

The film’s got flaws. But while it is, on one level, sensationalist trash, that isn’t one of them.

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I’m starting to think that you either buy the payoff or you don’t. Critics who buy it, think it’s brilliant and defend the film against the critics who don’t buy it and just walk away feeling as though they were raped themselves.
I guess the payoff did nothing for Monk and she felt as though she wasted a few hours of her life on watching human beings brutalize one another for no good reason.

And I guess the only way to know whether it’s going to be worth it to you, is to see the film for itself. That’s pretty brilliant from a marketing standpoint.

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I JUST finished watching it. If you go to see it, don’t give in to the urge to walk out. You will be better off if you watch the whole movie. Since it is…shown in reverse it is…almost therapeutic (for lack of a better term). It gets better as you watch the movie. And you start to understand. And your sort of heal. After the rape scene that’s it. No more violence. Once you’ve made it that far, you might as well go the rest of the way.What sickened me the most was people walking out AFTER they watched the rape scene, not during the rape scene. It was as if that’s all they wanted to watch.

It helped me to read the subtitles. It kept me from entering the movie all the way so that helped me stay distant. The camera work, though painful, also did it’s part to keep me distant. If the first scene of Saving Private Ryan gave you a headache, as it did me, then take some aspirin BEFORE the movie starts. You’ll need it. The shaking, no, not shaking… constantly moving and twisting camera yanks you out of reality at the beginning of the movie and pulls you in, but since it’s moving so much you can’t focus on much of the first part of the movie. You try to focus on one thing but since you are trying to focus, you kind of ignore what is going on. It’s another technique to keep the audience from totally entering the movie. The moving camera is important, but I still didn’t like it.

You can’t say that you like this movie. “Like” is the wrong word. I said that I appreciate it. I understand it’s purpose and agree with it. It wasn’t an easy movie to watch, both in content and in method. But it got the point across. I give it a cautious thumbs up. Not for the faint of heart.

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Oh! One more thing. If strobes give you seizures:
AVOID THIS MOVIE AT ALL COSTS.

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Well, I “buy” the payoff – I mean, I don’t think it’s as dismissable as Monk seems to believe – but I don’t think the film is brilliant, either. Irréversible is technically brilliant, and it’s about more than just exploitation. But I don’t think it succeeds well enough on a narrative or thematic level to be called brilliant.

As it stands, the movie is just good enough that I don’t feel like Noé brutalized my senses for nothing. But I can’t say I exactly appreciated the experience.

And prisoner6655321 is right on about the strobes.

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Here’s something you have to realize. Irréversible is VERY explicit. But it certainly does not glorify rape and murder. That is this movie’s true strength. It’s message is a good one. In that regard, it should be praised. Other movies that use a rape scene or a murder as a narrative device are the movies that should be banned and critisized harshly, not this one. Those critics that blast Irréversible just don’t get it.