The violent scenes are brutal, so is the film itself.
The world premiere took place this year during in the competitive category at the Cannes Film Festival, where critics and the public were split-up between either loving the film or loathing it. Discussions followed by exclamation and question marks have ensued on whether the content in film is shocking or if it was simply meant to shock. Caution this film with jolt you, shock you and disturb you-well at least for one specific scene. For those who haven’t seen the film, I don’t think I’d be giving away too much when I tell you that the film excludes a very long close to a 10-minute rape scene, and that the entire flow of the narrative is told backwards- similar to last year’s Memento-even going as far as playing the end credits first kind of like rewinding a film on your video and ending with some Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. With the Baise-Moi revenge-seeking film message, director Gaspar Noé has created one of this year’s most controversial films in, Irréversible.
Under the tagline that states, “time will eventually destroy all”, Irréversible shows the viewer a day in the life that includes the worst that humanity has to offer and ends with the promise of a new day. Noé continually addresses this notion with his treatment of the narrative and his treatment of the visuals. The introduction commences in the most chaotic of ways- not only does Noé disorient the viewer by starting with the end, but he adapts a filmmaking method that sees the camera go in a sort of continual 360 degree spin, suggestion: don’t look too closely or you might get nauseous. The narrative breakdown basically brings the viewer one chunk of an episode at a time starting with the most angry of men in a Vincent Cassel (Birthday Girl) looking for a person with a name inside the darkness of a S & M-like underworld of people dressed in their birthday suits. The way in which Noé films this sequence only augments the descent into a hellish world of the protagonist. What comes afterwards will make you go cringe.
There is a definite style here from Noé, aggressivity with the camera- an edgy cinematography that will agitate rather than relax the viewer’s senses. This does very little for the telling of a story in a backwards mode- as it only serves purpose for the tagline, but it does nothing for originality and nor does it do anything for the relatively weak storyline. The dialogue in the film is pretty much all ad-lib, and focuses more on the actions of the characters rather than the spoken word. The much talked about scene that will bring about the sound of cinema doors slamming shut, leaves no room for comfort- showing the violence in front of a surprisingly very still camera angle. The desecrated rape sequence of Monica Belluci’s (Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre) character makes Halle Berry’s Oscar performance of basic whining and crying look about as credible as Robert De Niro in a comedic role. Since this is more of a means to an end sequence rather than the focal point as seen in Jonathan Kaplan’s The Accused-there is no logic as to why the scene is as long as it is. So when it comes time to answering the question of whether the film was made to shock, I would put a tick-mark in the yes box and I would put a tick-mark in the box that says, that Irréversible is not worth seeing.
