Irréversible
Reviewed by Edward Larsen Terkelsen

France, NR, 99 m, 2002
Directed by Gaspar Noé. Stars Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel, et al.

There are more than a few misguided souls out there who think they’re demonstrating cinematic literacy (or, if I may offer up a new word, cine-smarts) by likening the reverse chronology of Irréversible to Memento, but that’s like comparing Wild Strawberries to The Apple Dumpling Gang because either picture has a title that references fruit. The non-linear approach in Memento cunningly mirrored the fractured memory of its protagonist (and enlivened what might have otherwise been just a routine film noir), but the backwards narrative in Irréversible is used to lay emphasis on its theme: Le temps détruit tout, or “Time destroys everything.” (It’s wrong to credit Memento as the originator of the backwards narrative anyway; Harold Pinter did it in Betrayal long before Christopher Nolan’s smoky opus hit the screens.) Rewinding Irréversible’s chain of events adds poignancy to the rising action and prevents the climax from seeming exploitative. That still hasn’t stopped a few critics (and a plethora of IMDb users) from dismissing the picture as just another new-fangled spin on the mucky revenge flicks that were staples of grindhouse bills in the ‘70s, but lumping Irréversible in with something like Quentin Tarantino’s masturbatory Kill Bill reveals an obtuseness on behalf of those detractors that’s almost frightening—it would be like writing off War and Peace as a minor adventure story. A revenge flick will pump an audience up until they’re screaming for the bad guy’s comeuppance, but Irréversible gives us the climactic settling of scores at the beginning of the film, keeping our bloodlust at bay and challenging our need for catharsis. Worse, the almost intolerably graphic act of vengeance is unwittingly brought down on the wrong scumbag, underlining the sheer futility of trying to get hold of justice in a godless world where all living things must function within a hierarchy or murder. Irréversible is very strong meat: The violence doesn’t wind us up—it sickens us. By taking a shopworn genre and standing it on its head (or shoving its head in a vise and popping out its eyeballs Casino-style), Noé has fashioned a very responsible and, dare I say, ethical piece of film here, and that can’t be said about the useless items that littered the grindhouses back in the day. The next person who mentions Irréversible and I Spit on Your Corpse, I Piss on Your Grave in the same breath should be forced to watch the latter over and over until their brain cracks and they’re left staring into the middle distance and babbling away like Oswald at the end of Ibsen’s Ghosts.

Irréversible is French filmmaker Gaspar Noé’s sophomore effort, and it’s a grueling experience—unflinching, hardnosed, raw. Noé, God bless him, is a purist: He eschews the frenetic editing that’s in vogue with young directors these days, opting instead for twelve long, unbroken takes—as Orson Welles might say, he lets the thing happen. Granted, those things are sometimes hard to look at, but it would be dishonest of the director to buff up the horrors on display. Noé doesn’t cushion the ride; he pulls you so deep into the bowels of the Paris underworld that you fear you’re going to pass out from the stench. (Walkouts do occur: At the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, the house lost 200 viewers long before the curtain fell.) Like Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, Irréversible stirs up a mess of uncomfortable feelings, which is why I think so many people are happy to dismiss it. 

The first thirty minutes or so of the picture are disorienting, even nausea-inducing for some: The camera swings around and around as a crapulous 28Hz frequency (that’s low) drones incessantly on the soundtrack. Things are clearly out of control. The film’s protagonist, Marcus (Vincent Cassel, who also co-produced) and his buttoned-up professor friend, Pierre (Albert Dupontel), are tearing though a gay S&M nightclub called “The Rectum” in search of someone called Le Tenia (which means “The Tapeworm”). Of the cantina in Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi said, “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” In his many years of intrepid, uh, sky walking, old Ben apparently never made it to the seedier side of Paris; Mos Eisley’s libation station has nothing on “The Rectum,” where copulation, sodomy and fisting takes place around every red-lit, dung-smeared corner. (“The Rectum” is an appropriate, though weirdly on-the-nose moniker for this reeking shithole.) But Noé’s spinning camera can’t fixate on the erect penises or the yawning, bloodied poop chutes; we catch a frame or two here and there as if by accident, which somehow makes the wall-to-wall deviancy in this godforsaken place that much more creepy. We soon pick up through some heated, extremely vulgar exchanges (all of which were improvised) that Le Tenia is responsible for the brutal rape of Marcus’s girlfriend (who is also Pierre’s ex-girlfriend), and when Marcus is sure that he’s found his man, a throwdown ensues that nearly ends (no pun intended) with Marcus himself being violated. Pierre, who originally followed Marcus into the club to try to talk him out of getting payback, becomes the avenger: He jumps into the fray and bonks Marcus’s attacker in the head with a fire extinguisher. The pervert crumples to the spooge-soaked floor, but Pierre doesn’t relent; he continues to pummel away at the man’s head until it caves in. Again, this is all presented sans cutaways, and it makes for one of the most disturbing acts of violence I have ever seen at the movies. (It’s certainly one of the more effective uses of CGI.) This entire sequence has prompted some knee-jerk liberals to dismiss Irréversible as “homophobic,” but the fact of the matter is that places like “The Rectum” do exist and what goes on there would make even the sloppiest reprobate this side of Barney Frank queasy. (Some people can’t abide any sort of frankness about the darker side of “alternate lifestyles”; just recall how poor Louise Hogarth took it on the chin for her gutsy documentary The Gift.)

As the film tumbles back in time, we learn that the deviant Pierre offed was not Le Tenia. (Incredibly, Le Tenia was standing right next to the accused when Marcus called him out, and if you have the cajones to go back and watch the scene again, you’ll spy Le Tenia taking a certain delight in watching the man’s noggin get pounded into mush.) When Marcus’s lady, Alex (heartbreakingly gorgeous Monica Bellucci), decides to take an underpass home from a late night party, she comes upon Le Tenia (Jo Pestia), a two bit pimp, as he’s putting a beating on one of his girls. Alex tries to hurry by, but Le Tenia pushes her against the wall (which, appropriately enough, has been painted blood-red) and puts a switchblade to her face. Seething with contempt for her class, her sex, her beauty, he throws her to the ground and forcibly sodomizes her. The camera doesn’t move an inch during this entire ordeal, which seems to go on and on and on. (It’s actually nine minutes.) It’s not easy bearing witness to Alex’s rape; it’s ugly, dehumanizing. Worse, there’s no escaping the line of fire, so all we can do is sit there in slack-jawed disbelief, feeling impotent. Our ears are violated, too: During the rape, Le Tenia subjects Alex to a depraved, spiteful, misogynistic verbal lambasting that we just might go to Hell for listening to. (The words cut twice as deep if you don’t speak French and have to read the subtitles.) The actors here are fearless; they’re required to bare themselves in a way that I don’t think most actors would even consider. Of course, Bellucci has the roughest emotional terrain to pass, and she’s nothing less than extraordinary. As the proceedings continue to reverse, we learn something else about her character that makes her defilement seem even more tragic upon reflection. In fact, this tiny, poignant revelation made me weep.  

Not unlike Blue Velvet or Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer or Man Bites Dog, Irréversible is a film that’s impossible to shake off. It rattled around in my head for a fortnight, vandalizing my dreamscape and even putting me off of sex until the vividness of its more hurtful images began to lose color. I shouldn’t say that I love Irréversible (warm fuzzies like that should always be reserved for beautiful, enriching works like E.T. or It’s a Wonderful Life), but I do admire the hell out of it. A more emotionally wrenching piece of cinema I have yet to see, and yet I’m loath to recommend it to anyone. You need a solid constitution to handle this sort of film, which I fear those raised in this country’s silly PC culture don’t have. (I can’t speak for the French, but Americans can’t handle the truth!) Let’s just hope some grasping Hollywood dickhead doesn’t try to make a watered-down English-language version with Bradgelina.   

July 15, 2009

Ó Copyright 2009 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.