As an aside, the Guardian’s film critic savaged Irreversible the other day. Completely shredded it for being sensationalistic and nonsensical. Hits on some plot points that really make the movie seem pretty, well, dumb.
http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_Film_of_the_week/0,4267,885577,00.html
Interestingly, the review seems to have been written by someone who Guestacy indicated would like the movie - an “upper class intellectual”. Maybe Irreversible’s appeal isn’t that simple.
I’m not surprised, at all, that people didn’t like the movie – let alone Guestacy who saw it without dialogue. Viewing just the sound and pictures, it would seem like a pointless depiction of violence and noise. The dialogue really does add a lot, including, in particular, any empathy the viewer would have for the characters in such a terrible situation.
As to whether or not anyone who has experienced violence would want to see it recreated – probably not. I don’t think that necessarily makes depictions of violence unwatchable, or inappropriate, however. It is a simple movie, which is unduly nihilistic, in my opinion – the original title was something like time destroys all beauty, and there’s plenty of beauty destroyed in the movie. The charactizations are great, and the characters are really interesting, which is what makes the scenes of such horrible violence so affecting. Seeing a zombie get bitten in half is nothing more than maybe a cool effect – seeing someone you perceive to be a really sympathetic, interesting, intelligent and beautiful character being violated is a much more affecting experience. Again, I completely understand people not enjoying witnessing such violence, or prefering to watch a tale (more simple or complex) that centers around something other than extremely violent acts.
That said, I thought Irreversible was an incredible film, which I’ve thought about a lot since I saw it – I don’t know why Noe felt compelled to make it, and I’m not sure that I’m glad I saw it, but it certainly was an incredible assault on sensibilities, which I think was the primary intention of the movie. There’s nothing more complicated to the movie that the nihilistic view that horrible things happen to even beautiful people, which is a morbid, cynical view, but it was interesting to see that view expressed so vividly in a movie that was so well acted and which featured such narrative ambiguity.
Just saw the DVD minus subtitles and luckily my French is decent. I’m not sure which aspects of the dialogue were so crucial that they weren’t mostly conveyed through gesture and body language.
I have to agree with that Guardian column, especially this line: “Noé’s movie is not the smallest bit interested in the woman’s experience, but in male rage, and Noé the film-maker has a distinct macho swagger in the shocks he dishes out.” It really does feel like a simple revenge story at heart, albeit one that goes awry in horrific ways. I don’t think that the film managed AT ALL to explore the theme of “time destroys everything” either – how exactly was this “time”? I think a more accurate statement of the theme would be “irrational violence destroys everything”.
Furthermore, the reverse narrative, though cool, managed to inject a weird note of optimism when this film really shouldn’t have had one – I think it would have been much truer to its purpose if it was shown forward. You’d still have the sense of the destruction of beauty or happiness or whatever, and it wouldn’t have you leaving the theatre with this kind of false “happy” ending. (Apparently Noe considers it such, see here.) The effect of the last half hour on me and others, from what I’ve gathered reading reviews on the web, is one of soothing, which seems absurd given the concept of the film. Maybe this stylistic choice was an experiment in seeing if a movie with terrible scenes in it can still end “happily”?
I definitely thought the cinematography and sound design (you get a fair sense of it, actually) were terrific though, and it definitely was a visceral film, but I fail to see the aspect of time destroying everything.
I can’t take seriously a guy, who in the current column states: “How else to explain bee-stung-nose types like Claire Danes, Julia Stiles, Chloe Sevigny and THE BOURNE IDENTITY’s Franka Potente snagging lead roles over the last few years? Women with their features would have never made it fifteen or twenty years ago. If you run into a woman who’s super-delectable in an almost Barbie Doll way, it’s a fairly safe bet she’s either a model or a trophy girlfriend or wife…and is almost certainly not an actress.” Is he normally this idiotic?
All of em except Franka suck, so I agree with him to that limited extent.
I have to agree with that Guardian column, especially this line: "Noé’s movie is not the smallest bit interested in the woman’s experience
I disagree. The movie begins (i.e. ends) with the woman’s experience. She is the focus of the movie until she’s rendered comatose. Her experience (i.e. backstory RE: pregnancy, relationship to the two men, premonitory dream) is a significant part of the movie’s impact.
I don’t think that the film managed AT ALL to explore the theme of “time destroys everything” either – how exactly was this “time”? I think a more accurate statement of the theme would be “irrational violence destroys everything”.
Good point.
There’s definitely something to be said for the way the movie plays with time and the way it destroys everything. Put the two together and, voila, Time Destroys Everything.
Seriously, though, I imagine Time Destroys Everything is more of a general outlook. I’d say the Irreversible’s worldview is that the world invariably turns to shit.
RE: the ending:
You’d still have the sense of the destruction of beauty or happiness or whatever, and it wouldn’t have you leaving the theatre with this kind of false “happy” ending. (Apparently Noe considers it such, see here.)
The poster you linked to is incorrect. I was at the same screening and Noe explained afterwards, during the Q&A, that he didn’t really think the movie had a happy ending.
-Tom
My brother and his wife walked out of it at Sundance (he said people were leaving in droves).
They love independent films, but didn’t care for Irreversible at all.
He also said Noe seemed like some sort of a freak – wearing a uniform or something.
I don’t mind violence/gore when it’s not the focus of a film, but I’ve just seen way too much blood to have any urge to watch this one.
Well, you essentially lose the whole performance. How many best actor/actresses performances rely solely on gestures and body language? Uh, Holly Hunter in the Piano, I guess, but in general dialogue and the manner in which it’s conveyed is a pretty key component in developing any characterization or empathy with the characters in the movie.
I don’t think that the film managed AT ALL to explore the theme of “time destroys everything” either – how exactly was this “time”? I think a more accurate statement of the theme would be “irrational violence destroys everything”.
I agree. As I mentioned to Tom at the time, the original title made no sense. Uh, maybe something’s lost in the translation (and it should have been something like “even beauty is eventually destroyed”), but I don’t think Roe was going for anything particularly deep. The whole movie is just an assault, and that’s abundantly clear both from the content and the abrasive style of the film.
The French are weird, and have this current obsession with films with explicit violence/sexuality (Baise Moi, Romance). I think most North American viewers wouldn’t like any of those movie (and I also don’t think most of them are particularly watchable for any reason).
…wouldn’t have you leaving the theatre with this kind of false “happy” ending.
As Tom indicated, we were at the same screening at the poster you linked to, and Noe expressly said in the Q&A that he wasn’t being sincere when he said it had a happy ending – he was just trying to prevent people from walking out. A few people left our screening, but apparently at least half the theatre left one showing (which may have been the one Raife’s brother was at).
I can’t take seriously a guy, who in the current column states: “How else to explain bee-stung-nose types like Claire Danes,.” Is he normally this idiotic?
heh, good call and no. The Irreversible discussion is in the previous column if anyone is still interested.
They love independent films, but didn’t care for Irreversible at all.
He also said Noe seemed like some sort of a freak – wearing a uniform or something. I don’t mind violence/gore when it’s not the focus of a film, but I’ve just seen way too much blood to have any urge to watch this one
Heh, I don’t recall Noe wearing a uniform, but anyone who seems to want to focus on explicit violence as much as Noe does is pretty disturbed. I actually hate gore in films (or at least the fact that gore and illegal, horrific violence is considered far more acceptable subject matter than basic depictions of normal, human sexuality), but I also hate films that feature violence but then sanitize it to make it seem less horrific.
Any war film that features depictions of combat less graphically than Saving Private Ryan since that film’s release is sensationalizing the subject matter, in my opinion (cough, when we were soldiers, wind talkers, cough).
Okay, I can agree with that, though I’d hardly call the plot dialogue-driven. I actually do think you can get a great deal of understanding of the relationships between the trio through the body language, especially the stuff going on at the party. There are definitely some scenes that will be confusing without knowing French, though, I admit.
I agree. As I mentioned to Tom at the time, the original title made no sense. Uh, maybe something’s lost in the translation (and it should have been something like “even beauty is eventually destroyed”), but I don’t think Roe was going for anything particularly deep. The whole movie is just an assault, and that’s abundantly clear both from the content and the abrasive style of the film.
See, this is where I think Noe’s intent breaks down. Obviously, from that moviepoopshoot column you pointed to, with the talk of the press kit, he THINKS he’s making these grandiose, meaningful films that have all kinds of things to say, but his own movie subverts that. If, as Tom stated, the theme is “everything turns to shit” or as you state, “even beauty is eventually destroyed”, I’m not exactly sure how either of those are particularly interesting. In the latter case, wouldn’t it have been much more interesting if time actually did play a factor in the destruction of beauty? Instead, it was kind of the movie equivalent of watching the Bud Dwyer television suicide. It really does work as a shock film, albeit a strangely pretty and artfully conceived shock film.
I’m not exactly sure how either of those are particularly interesting. In the latter case, wouldn’t it have been much more interesting if time actually did play a factor in the destruction of beauty?
“Interesting” is one of those words kind of like “fun”. You can’t dispute it because its so subjective that it’s meaningless. I don’t really know how to respond to someone who ways Irreversible isn’t “interesting”, except to say “yes it is!”. :)
It really does work as a shock film, albeit a strangely pretty and artfully conceived shock film.
Well put and I don’t disagree in the slightest.
-Tom
Yeah, sorry about that. I have a bad habit of assuming people can read my mind from my shorthand.
By “not interesting”, I meant that “the world is shit” theme is pretty simplistic for the core of a film with such grandiose intentions. In contrast, the recent film “Narc” has more depth in exploring that whole underworld thing – lives destroyed and corrupted by violence – but won’t get the attention because it doesn’t have a prolonged rape scene. (Incidentally, that scene is getting passed around as a clip on file-sharing apps – warms the heart, eh?) I, personally, would have been much more interested in seeing something that used the “reverse time” device thematically, but as we agree, Noe didn’t do that, which is why I felt it was a gimmick.
Actually Narc got much, much more attention at Sundance last year than Irreversible did this year. There is justice!
I finally saw Irreversible.
In regards to Brett Todd’s post re: The Sopranos, I agree with Stefan and say that there is no comparison. The opening sequence of Irreversible (discounting the prologue) is possibly the most exhausting and disorienting assault on the senses ever committed to film. It is relentlessly manipulative and unpleasant. At first, it’s just annoying. Then the two-tone* soundtrack kicks in and the camera becomes more chaotic. By the time extinguisher first cracks head, Noe has basically worked the viewer into the same state as Pierre and Marcus. This is, for me, what separates the fire extinguisher scene from seeing real violence, the Bud Dwyer suicide someone mentioned above. In Irreversible, you not only have to watch a very realistic act of violence, but you must do so in an already-agitated state. Of course, I am not comparing the two. Only stating that when presented with real acts of horror, whether legitimately real or Faces of Death “real,” you see them without context. And, for better or for worse, Noe has created an effective context for the brutal act that ends the story.
What’s interesting to me is that the rape scene is completely devoid of such manipulations, which shows, if nothing else, that Noe is an astute filmmaker when it comes to violent images. Irreversible has the two most disturbing scenes I have ever seen and, from a technical standpoint, they couldn’t be more different. The rape scene is unwatchable. I don’t mean this figuratively: I could not bring myself to watch the majority of it, and had my hands pressed tightly over my face so that I could only hear gutteral French punctuated by the sharp sounds of seats springing up around me as people left. However disturbing, I think that the scene is notable for erradicating Hollywood’s typical notion that rape is just Xtreme Sex. The rape in Irreversible is not a sex scene; it is not a predatory fantasy. Rather, it is an act of horrifying violence, presently bluntly. For some reason, the image that most affected me during this scene was that of the blurry pedestrian who enters the underpass, sees what is happening, and then leaves.
Reviews I’ve read have made a big deal about the fact that the wrong man is killed, which seems like an inconsequential point. It would be more significant if Marcus did the killing. But more important than who they kill is who does the killing. Pierre who, as the film goes on, we learn is neurotically intellectual, who has spent the entire descent into The Rectum trying to convince Marcus to leave, to go to the hospital to see Alex. Marcus, who seems to be little more than a ball of animal emotions, rages through the club and then starts a fight and gets his arm broken. But Pierre is the one who, in the end, brutally murders someone, smashing his face over and over, long after the threat has been neutralized, and with a look of calm on his face. It seems to imply that the instigating factor for this act was not the rape, but the moment Alex said goodbye to Pierre at the party.
I liked the structure of the film. We cannot have any sympathy for the characters as they commit this act, and once the violence is all over, we are taken back through the night to understand why it happened - primarily a volatile mix of drugs and emotions. It is a clinical approach, but I thought it was effective. I felt sorry for those who left the film during the rape, because they missed the scene of Marcus and Alex getting ready for the party, which was sweet enough to act as a semi-effective decompressant, especially when he kisses her through the shower curtain. When it was over, though, I couldn’t help but question the point of the film. There seemed to be no universal theme, only an analysis of a night which ruined four fictional people’s lives. And I questioned the last scene, in which Alex sits in a park watching children play, because she looked pregnant. Perhaps it was meant to be a dream preceding the Marcus/Alex scene, but it confused me.
I am glad I saw Irreversible, if only because it let me know that I am not desensitized to violence. But I really hope that Noe doesn’t try to top himself. He should pull a Graham Greene and make an “entertainment” next; he has a great talent, but after Irreversible and I Stand Alone, he’s running the risk of becoming the French Todd Solondz.
*To clarify: The soundtrack is simply two rumbling tones repeated over and over; it was not made up of Two-Tone artists. Watching someone have their head obliterated to the skanking sounds of “A Message to You, Rudy” would have, I think, created a very different effect.
I thought so as well – we talked about that as well, after seeing the movie. It was maybe my favourite touch in the movie, because of because it seemed realistic and the fact that you already know that any hope it generates is a red herring.
Disagree with you here, and think that scene is consistent with the other one described above, at emphasizing Noe’s obviously nihilsitic viewpoint. Those two scenes really highlight the film’s nihilism.
That wouldn’t be a negative development, to me.
RE: the wrong man being killed
While I understand what Ron means about the identity of the killer being more significant than the identity of the victim, I’m with Stefan about it’s impact.
When I saw it at Sundance, I didn’t realize that the wrong man had been killed until the Q&A with Noe after the movie. Maybe because I’d missed that fact, it really was a shock to me. And the rest of the audience, I think. There was a vocal reaction when Noe explained that the wrong man had been killed.
-TomI finally saw this. One thing I haven’t noticed anyone commenting on in the other threads is the manner in which Alex and Marcus’ last scene together anticipates many of the most powerful moments in the film.
Of course, there’s the obvious “I had a dream about a red hallway that was about to break in two” dream that Alex mentions, and that reveal is so amateur it almost sinks the entire scene, but Noe largely pulls it off. In the context of a tender late afternoon moment, as Alex and Marcus wake up from a nap after they’ve made love, the little, innocent things that foreshadow the rest of the film are deeply disturbing. The way Marcus’ hand is draped over Alex’s mouth, and how she keeps annoyingly tries to remove it in her half-sleep, which is - a few hours later, this same imagery will be used as Alex tries to peel the hand of her rapist off her mouth so that she can scream. When Alex gets up to walk around, she drapes a white towel around her that looks exactly like her party dress. When Marcus quips “I want to fuck your ass”, Alex laughs, “You’re such a romantic”, and hours later, she’s sodomized and beaten into a coma. There’s more, but those (particularly the hand) were the ones that really stuck out to me.
Actually, I think the two last scenes in the movie (the scene between Alex and Marcus and the scene with Alex, Marcus and Pierre on the subway) are ironic foreshadowings of the rest of the film - one mostly visual, one mostly philosophical. I was surprised that I could find the rape scene any more sickening than I did, but all it took was for Alex to blaze up in a beautiful torrent of exhiliration and defiance and tell Pierre that pleasing a woman all depended on a man only concentrating on pleasing himself.
Also, I completely missed the fact that Pierre killed the wrong guy at the end of the movie. Knowing that, I think watching Irreversible a second time will be more disturbing, not less. During Alex’s rape scene, my only real comfort was that the fucker who did this was about to be brutally beaten to death, and I even skipped back to the Rektum scene just to watch that again when it was over.
I think that’s very significant. The reason Pierre is the one to kill “Tenia” is because he was the one who walked Alex to the door and reluctantly accepted her desire to walk home alone. Meanwhile, Marcus simply let her go. Pierre’s attempts to stray Marcus from the path towards the Rectum, the way he lingers at the club entrance while Marcus goes in, is his attempt to avoid doing a horrific murder that he knows, in the end, he must. This is the second time he’s lost Alex to someone he considers an animal. Because I don’t think Tenia is merely Alex’s rapist to Pierre - when Pierre destroys “Tenia” with that fire extinguisher, he’s also destroying Marcus.
There was a lot of discussion of this film, oddly, in the threads for “The Office” (British version) as well.
Reflecting back, this movie may have spawned some of the more philiosphical movie discussions I’ve seen on the board.
What was the point of meeting the pregnant woman in the party halfway through the film? Was this just a foreshadowing of her own pregnancy? Or did I miss something?