Irreversible - Straight Cut (18.)
Directed by Gasper Noe. 2002.
Starring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassell, Albert Dupontel. Included on the double-disc Indicator Blu-ray release of Irreversible, available from April 26th. 90 mins
Irreversible ends (or begins) with the word "Time Destroys All Things." Time though hasn't been able to lay a finger on this 2002 film which has retained every bit of its notoriety and shock value over the best part of two decades. Nobody can out-ugly Gasper Noe, which is rather reassuring. It would be a terrible state of affairs if this ever became just another film. Maybe this motivated its director to do a bit of potential self-sabotage. If time's slacking, he can do it himself.
Irreversible, his second feature, includes two of the most repellent scenes put on the screen. (The first, or last, is a graphic murder sequence, the second a lengthy rape sequence, each made gruelling by appearing to happen in real time.) Irreversible has two things going for it: the intensity and excellence of the filmmaking and the gimmick of telling the story in reverse. It begins with the aftermath of a brutal act of vengeance and then works its way back to the rape that provoked it at the midway point and then continues further back to an idyllic scene of Bellucci sitting in a park reading a book. Now though he has de-gimmicked it and reordered the film into a chronological narrative.
I think Noe is evidence that the best filmmakers don't necessarily make the best films. (Or didn't until 2018's brilliant Climax) Noe constructs Irreversible as a series of 14 unbroken tracking shots connected by sequences where he sends the camera swirling around in a disorientating way to disguise the cut. In one of his short films, he gives viewers a football-eye view of a kickaround, putting us inside the leather as it swirls through the air from one foot to the next. And that is archetypal Noe: his camera seems to have a freedom of movement that few other directors have access to. Coupled with the striking use of colour and the oppressive sound design it makes for a compelling intense vision; films that yank you along and don't give you a moment's peace.
But all this virtuosity delivers is cheap nihilism. Like the sadist that Bellucci encounters in the subway, its only motivation is to revel in the destruction of beauty. And Noe is always so unbearably pleased with the ugliness he uncovers, delivers it all with such joie de grief. Maybe that is the motivation for tossing off, the Straight Cut – see, it didn't matter either way.
Previously the film moved from depravity into innocence. Turning it into a conventional tragedy diminishes it to some degree (and 7 minutes have been cut from the running time) but it is doesn't take away its hideous power. It's a great big nothing but defiantly so. I'd like to think that I'd be better a person than one who would willingly watch Irreversible more than once, but it seems not.
It also addresses an important social issue: why do women fall for brutish, oafish men? Or, more precisely, what did Bellucci, the woman mankind has placed on the pedestal above all others, see in the bozo Cassell, a man who specialises in playing knobheads? Yes, I know that he's an actor and that he's only pretending to be a knobhead but he is very convincing in these roles. It can't all be pretend and make believe, can it? The first part of (this version) of the film is her ex (Dupontel) quizzing her on what she sees in him as the three of them travel by metro to a party. He is mystified about how such a woman can bear to spend time with a shaven gorilla.
In real life, Bellucci and Cassell were together for 17 years and have two children together. She must have been secure in the relationship because the origins of the project that would become Irreversible were an exploration of their relationship, something like Noe's later film Love. So maybe the question should be why do women like Bellucci make films with people like Noe? I'm sure she must have felt brave and bold making it, but wouldn't it have been braver and bolder to tell Noe to shove it when he suggested spending upwards of ten minutes at a time pretending to be brutally raped on the floor of a pedestrian subway? Especially as it is ultimately just an adolescent provocation.
He is a remarkable filmmaker but with a limited world view that doesn't offer audiences anything beyond empty visceral intensity, allbeit the very highest quality of empty visceral intensity. He must not know about life and you should never, never ever get yourself to thinking its Irreversible.
Directed by Gasper Noe. 2002.
Starring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassell, Albert Dupontel. Included on the double-disc Indicator Blu-ray release of Irreversible, available from April 26th. 90 mins
Irreversible ends (or begins) with the word "Time Destroys All Things." Time though hasn't been able to lay a finger on this 2002 film which has retained every bit of its notoriety and shock value over the best part of two decades. Nobody can out-ugly Gasper Noe, which is rather reassuring. It would be a terrible state of affairs if this ever became just another film. Maybe this motivated its director to do a bit of potential self-sabotage. If time's slacking, he can do it himself.
Irreversible, his second feature, includes two of the most repellent scenes put on the screen. (The first, or last, is a graphic murder sequence, the second a lengthy rape sequence, each made gruelling by appearing to happen in real time.) Irreversible has two things going for it: the intensity and excellence of the filmmaking and the gimmick of telling the story in reverse. It begins with the aftermath of a brutal act of vengeance and then works its way back to the rape that provoked it at the midway point and then continues further back to an idyllic scene of Bellucci sitting in a park reading a book. Now though he has de-gimmicked it and reordered the film into a chronological narrative.
I think Noe is evidence that the best filmmakers don't necessarily make the best films. (Or didn't until 2018's brilliant Climax) Noe constructs Irreversible as a series of 14 unbroken tracking shots connected by sequences where he sends the camera swirling around in a disorientating way to disguise the cut. In one of his short films, he gives viewers a football-eye view of a kickaround, putting us inside the leather as it swirls through the air from one foot to the next. And that is archetypal Noe: his camera seems to have a freedom of movement that few other directors have access to. Coupled with the striking use of colour and the oppressive sound design it makes for a compelling intense vision; films that yank you along and don't give you a moment's peace.
But all this virtuosity delivers is cheap nihilism. Like the sadist that Bellucci encounters in the subway, its only motivation is to revel in the destruction of beauty. And Noe is always so unbearably pleased with the ugliness he uncovers, delivers it all with such joie de grief. Maybe that is the motivation for tossing off, the Straight Cut – see, it didn't matter either way.
Previously the film moved from depravity into innocence. Turning it into a conventional tragedy diminishes it to some degree (and 7 minutes have been cut from the running time) but it is doesn't take away its hideous power. It's a great big nothing but defiantly so. I'd like to think that I'd be better a person than one who would willingly watch Irreversible more than once, but it seems not.
It also addresses an important social issue: why do women fall for brutish, oafish men? Or, more precisely, what did Bellucci, the woman mankind has placed on the pedestal above all others, see in the bozo Cassell, a man who specialises in playing knobheads? Yes, I know that he's an actor and that he's only pretending to be a knobhead but he is very convincing in these roles. It can't all be pretend and make believe, can it? The first part of (this version) of the film is her ex (Dupontel) quizzing her on what she sees in him as the three of them travel by metro to a party. He is mystified about how such a woman can bear to spend time with a shaven gorilla.
In real life, Bellucci and Cassell were together for 17 years and have two children together. She must have been secure in the relationship because the origins of the project that would become Irreversible were an exploration of their relationship, something like Noe's later film Love. So maybe the question should be why do women like Bellucci make films with people like Noe? I'm sure she must have felt brave and bold making it, but wouldn't it have been braver and bolder to tell Noe to shove it when he suggested spending upwards of ten minutes at a time pretending to be brutally raped on the floor of a pedestrian subway? Especially as it is ultimately just an adolescent provocation.
He is a remarkable filmmaker but with a limited world view that doesn't offer audiences anything beyond empty visceral intensity, allbeit the very highest quality of empty visceral intensity. He must not know about life and you should never, never ever get yourself to thinking its Irreversible.
