Irreversible is a movie shot in reverse chronological order about one traumatic night for 3 people: a couple and the girl's past ex. The movie is about Alex (Monica Bellucci) who when leaving a party gets abused and raped by a mysterious man. The follows Alex's boyfriend (Vincent Cassel) and ex (Albert Dupontel) has they search the city to get revenge. It also follows the couple before the rape and explores their relationship and friends. Beware spoilers.
This film, in my opinion, is all about manipulating the audience and making you look on yourself more than looking on this movie. This film is shot in reverse chronological order so you start out by seeing the two guys walk through a gay bar finding someone who they want to hurt. While the gay bar scene is hard to watch and see, the worst part isn't until they smash a man's face in with a fire extinguisher. As you move throughout the film you see Cassel's rage and soon learn that his girlfriend get raped. Then on top of that we have to sit through 10 minutes of actually seeing the rape getting committed. It is hard to watch I will not lie. Though the worst part is seeing all that happened before the rape and seeing small things that at first may seem harmless soon you start to realize all lead to her rape. Still, even though this movie is hard to watch, it is a very good story. I know that may sound like a weird thing to say but it is a thought provoking story that works. Its dark and horribly ironic, especially in the second half. You start questioning yourself and your perspective and it definitely changes you for a while at the least.
Really I must say that my favorite part of this film is Gasper Noe. He really impresses me throughout this film because his is one daring director. I am glad to see a man trying new techniques and going outside the box. Sometimes I feel like too many directors follow a certain formula so it is nice to see Noe be daring. Also it takes some balls to do some of the scenes he did. I am not sure I could take up the challenge of filming a 10 minute rape scene. I also enjoy the manipulations that Noe does. He really controls how your feeling corrupts a lot of seeming innocent scenes but you have a completely perspective by the time you get tot he innocent stuff.
The thing that I think this movie is all about it experience. There is a discussion between Alex and her ex where she tries to explain a sexual experience to him by saying that it is something that you cannot explain to talk about but rather you must experience it. So when it comes to the focus point of this film, rape, Gasper Noe gives the audience the same point that rape is something that you cannot even begin to understand it without some way experiencing it. Now I am not trying to say that Irreversible gives people the experience of rape, it might be as close as you can get without actually getting raped. So once again, Noe is brilliant by making the audience sit and watch this to better understand the first half of the film. Then the second half of the film really becomes a reflecting section and makes you question a lot of things. It makes you question the characters actions that if you had seen the first act first you would not react the same. It really is a powerful film and it has a great shot of Alex looking in a mirror and really Noe want you to look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what this film has done to ya.
I must also applaud Noe for doing my new favorite zoom in all of film. Their is a point where Cassel sees that Alex is the rape victim and the camera zooms as the sound goes quiet and you can hear a slight heart beat. Its awesome and I paused the movie so I could watch it a few times.
Overall this movie is not for everyone and its tough to watch. Still I think this is a great film and it can lead to deep discussion and great exploration of all the themes and imagery. I was glad to see that this movie is as good as I have heard and hope to explore it some more. 5 out of 5 stars.
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