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Irréversible

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For other uses, see Irreversible (disambiguation).

Irréversible
Theatrical release poster
Directed byGaspar Noé
Written byGaspar Noé
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography
Edited byGaspar Noé
Music byThomas Bangalter
Production
companies
Distributed byMars Distribution
Release date
  • 22 May 2002 (2002-05-22) (France)
Running time
97 minutes (original)[1]
86 minutes (Straight Cut)[2]
CountryFrance
Languages
  • French
  • English
  • Italian
  • Spanish
Budget€4.6 million[3]
Box office€5.8 million[4][5]

Irréversible (French: [iʁevɛʁsibl]) is a 2002 French art thriller film written and directed by Gaspar Noé. Starring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel, the plot depicts the events of a tragic night in Paris as two men attempt to avenge the brutal rape and beating of the woman they love. The film is made up of a title sequence followed by 13 segments made to look like long takes. Each of these segments is either a continuous shot or a series of shots digitally composited to resemble a continuous shot. The story is told in reverse order, with each scene taking place chronologically before the one that precedes it.[6]

Theatrically released in France, the United Kingdom and the United States, Irréversible competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and won the Bronze Horse at the Stockholm International Film Festival. Critical reception was mixed, with praise towards the performances and Noé's direction, but criticism towards its graphic portrayal of violence and rape. American film critic Roger Ebert called Irréversible "a movie so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable".[7] A version of the film told in chronological order, Irreversible: Straight Cut (French: Irréversible – Inversion intégrale), was released in 2020.[8]

Plot

[edit]
This summary is in chronological order as it is in the Straight Cut version.

"Time destroys everything" (French: "Le temps détruit tout").

The film's main message which appears at the end of the original cut when the movie transitions to a strobe effect.

"Time reveals everything" (French: "Le temps révèle tout").

In the Straight Cut, this message—which still appears at the end of the film—differs from the original.

Alex and Marcus, a young couple, wake up together and discuss their relationship, as well as an upcoming party, while in the nude. Alex reveals she had a dream of herself standing in a red tunnel that breaks in two, before taking a pregnancy test that reveals a positive result. On a public train, Pierre, Alex's ex who is also invited to the party, constantly bickers with Alex over his inability to satisfy her during their relationship, while Marcus expresses disinterest in their squabble. At the party, Marcus gets drunk and takes cocaine, much to Alex's displeasure. She leaves the party, asking Pierre to look after Marcus. Alex descends into a red pedestrian underpass on her way back to the train when she notices a transgender prostitute getting attacked by a man. He immediately turns his attention to Alex, anally raping her before savagely beating her into unconsciousness.

After Marcus and Pierre discover Alex being taken away by paramedics, they encounter street criminals Mourad and Layde, who offer to help them find the culprit. They use an ID left at the scene by the prostitute to locate her. Marcus verbally assaults Concha, the prostitute, and threatens to cut her face open in order to gather that the rapist's name is Le Ténia ("the tapeworm") and that he frequents a gay BDSM club called Rectum. The men are chased off by other prostitutes; Marcus and Pierre jump into a taxi cab and speed off into the night. When the cab driver doesn't know where Rectum is, Marcus attacks the driver, stealing his vehicle. The two end up finding Rectum, with Pierre reluctantly following behind Marcus. Leading the charge, Marcus proceeds to get into a fight with a man he suspects of being Le Ténia, who ends up breaking his arm before attempting to rape him. Pierre comes to his rescue and beats the man to death with a nearby fire extinguisher as the man's companion, the actual rapist, watches in amusement. Marcus is carried out of Rectum on a stretcher while Pierre is arrested by police.

Meanwhile, in a nearby small apartment, a man named the Butcher, the lead character of I Stand Alone, tells a friend that he was arrested for raping his daughter before dismissing the commotion going on outside.

Cast

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Director Gaspar Noé has a cameo as one of the patrons in the Rectum.

Production

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Irréversible was originally titled as Danger.[9] Gaspar Noé first found financing for the new title after he pitched the story to be told in reverse, in order to capitalize on the popularity of Christopher Nolan's film Memento (2000).[10]

Irréversible was shot using a widescreen lightweight Minima Super16 mm camera.[11] The film consists of about a dozen apparently unbroken shots[12] melded together from hundreds of shots.[13] This included the infamous nine-minute-long rape scene,[14] portrayed in a single, unbroken shot.[15] Noé said he had no idea how long the rape scene was going to last, as this was determined by Monica Bellucci, who essentially directed the scene, and Jo Prestia, who played her assailant.[16] Noé stated in interviews that during the production of the film he used cocaine in order to help him carry the large cameras needed to capture the rotating shots in the film.[17]

Computer-generated imagery was used in post-production for the penis in the rape scene.[18] Another example is the scene where Pierre beats a man's face and crushes his skull with a fire extinguisher.[19] CGI was used to augment the results, as initial footage using a conventional latex dummy proved unconvincing.[20] During the first thirty minutes of its running time, the film uses an extremely low-frequency sound of 27 Hz to create a state of nausea and anxiety in the audience, as it is not immediately perceptible to the spectator, but enough to evoke a physical response.[21][22] Quoting Noé, "You can't hear them, but they make you shiver. In a good cinema with a good audio system, the sound can scare you much more than what's happening on the screen."[23] This technique, called Sensurround, involves the intentional use of a sub-audible sound to enhance the spectator's experience of a movie, in this case, deliberately making them uncomfortable (although this would only be experienced in a cinema setting as most home speakers would not emit such low frequencies).[22]

Release

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Bellucci at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival

The film premiered in France on 22 May 2002 through Mars Distribution. It competed at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.[24] It was released in the United Kingdom on 31 January 2003 through Metro Tartan Distribution, and the United States on 7 March 2003 through Lions Gate Films. It grossed $792,200 from theatrical screenings.[4]

Irreversible: Straight Cut (French: Irréversible – Inversion intégrale) first screened at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival after Noe decided to give this version of the film a wider release instead of relegating it to a home release special feature. It was released in Los Angeles and New York City on 10 February 2023.[25]

Reception and legacy

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Critical response to the film was divided, with some critics panning the film and others considering it one of the year's best. The film holds an approval rating of 59% based on 126 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The website's critics' consensus states: "Though well-filmed, Irréversible feels gratuitous in its extreme violence."[26] The film received three votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll of the greatest films[27] and in 2016 was listed by critic Andreas Borcholte as one of the ten best films since 2000.[28]

Audience reactions to both the rape scene and the murder scene have ranged from appreciation of their artistic merits to leaving the theater in disgust.[29] Newsweek's David Ansen stated that "If outraged viewers (mostly women) at the Cannes Film Festival are any indication, this will be the most walked-out-of movie of 2003." In the same review, Ansen suggested that the film displayed "an adolescent pride in its own ugliness".[30]

American film critic Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film three stars out of a possible four. Ebert declared many viewers would find the film unwatchable due to the graphic violence, but he also proposed the film's structure makes it inherently moral rather than an exploitation film: "By placing the ugliness at the beginning, Gaspar Noe forces us to think seriously about the sexual violence involved."[7]

Film critic David Edelstein argued "Irréversible might be the most homophobic movie ever made."[31] Noé's depiction of gay criminal Le Tenia raping the female lead, Alex, remains the film's most controversial image. In his defense, Noé stated, "I'm not homophobic", noting "I also appear in Irréversible, masturbating at the gay club", as a means of showing "I didn't feel superior to gay people".[32]

Irréversible has been associated with a series of films defined as the cinéma du corps ("cinema of the body"), which according to Palmer[33] includes: an attenuated use of narrative, assaulting and often illegible cinematography, confrontational subject material, and a pervasive sense of social nihilism or despair. Irréversible has also been associated with the New French Extremity movement.[34]

In 2019, Irreversible: Straight Cut premiered at the Venice Film Festival, an alternate and remastered edit of the film presented in chronological order. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 90% approval rating with an average rating of 6.80/10 out of 10 critics.[35]

Accolades

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Irréversible won the top award, the Bronze Horse for best film, at the 2002 Stockholm International Film Festival. It was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Award by the Film Critics Circle of Australia. It was voted Best Foreign Language Film by the San Diego Film Critics Society, tied with The Barbarian Invasions (Les Invasions barbares).[36]

References

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  1. ^ "Irreversible (18)". British Board of Film Classification. 21 October 2002. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
  2. ^ "Irreversible: Straight Cut (2019)". MUBI. Retrieved 19 June 2024.
  3. ^ Palmer 2014, p. 145.
  4. ^ a b "Irreversible". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  5. ^ "Irreversible (2003) - International Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo.
  6. ^ Wood, Robin (5 April 2011). "Against and For Irreversible". Film International. Archived from the original on 11 August 2021.
  7. ^ a b Ebert, Roger (14 March 2003). "Irreversible". Roger Ebert.com. Archived from the original on 29 March 2010. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  8. ^ Davis, Edward (17 January 2023). "Gaspar Noé's 'Irreversible: Straight Cut' Finally Comes To The U.S. In Feb, A Chronological Restoration Of One Of Cinema's Most Infamous Films". The Playlist. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
  9. ^ "Gaspar Noé talks about his career, including his new film Vortex | BFI Q&A". YouTube. 18 May 2022. Retrieved 9 October 2022.
  10. ^ Kohn, Eric (6 August 2016). "Gaspar Noé Says All Directors Are 'Sucking D*cks For Financing' And Women Enjoyed 'Love' More Than Men". IndieWire. Retrieved 23 August 2016.
  11. ^ Palmer 2014, p. 77.
  12. ^ Sterritt, David (2005). Guiltless Pleasures: A David Sterritt Film Reader. University Press of Mississippi. p. 184. ISBN 978-1-57806-780-0.
  13. ^ American Cinematographer. Vol. 84, No 2–6. ASC Holding Corporation. 2003. p. 20.
  14. ^ Brottman, Mikita (2005). Offensive Films (illustrated ed.). Vanderbilt University Press. p. 161. ISBN 978-0-8265-1491-2.
  15. ^ Renga, Dana (2013). Unfinished Business: Screening the Italian Mafia in the New Millennium. University of Toronto Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-4426-1558-8.
  16. ^ Macnab, Geoffrey (1 August 2002). "'The rape had to be disgusting to be useful'". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  17. ^ "Why Gaspar Noé Directed on Cocaine, Masturbated in His Own Film and Shot a Live Birth". IndieWire. 29 October 2015.
  18. ^ Allmer, Patricia; Huxley, David; Brick, Emily (2012). European Nightmares: Horror Cinema in Europe Since the 1945 (illustrated ed.). Columbia University Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-231-85008-7.
  19. ^ Palmer, Tim; Michael, Charlie (2013). Directory of World Cinema: France (illustrated ed.). Intellect Books. p. 22. ISBN 978-1-84150-563-3.
  20. ^ Palmer 2014, pp. 88–90.
  21. ^ Wilson, Laura (2015). Spectatorship, Embodiment and Physicality in the Contemporary Mutilation Film (Illustrated ed.). Springer. pp. 84–85. ISBN 978-1-137-44438-7.
  22. ^ a b Grønstad, Asbjørn (2007). "Abject Desire: Anatomie de l'enfer and the Unwatchable". Studies in French Cinema. 6 (3): 161–169. doi:10.1386/sfci.6.3.161_1. S2CID 191568755.
  23. ^ "IRREVERSIBLE (2002) – I feel dirty and uncomfortable". Horrornauta - Explorer of the Macabre. 19 January 2023. Retrieved 30 January 2023.
  24. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Irréversible". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 22 August 2011. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
  25. ^ Davis, Edward (17 January 2023). "Gaspar Noé's 'Irreversible: Straight Cut' Finally Comes To The U.S. In Feb, A Chronological Restoration Of One Of Cinema's Most Infamous Films". The Playlist. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
  26. ^ "Irréversible (2002)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 23 September 2022.
  27. ^ "Votes for IRRÉVERSIBLE (2002)". Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  28. ^ "The 21st century's 100 greatest films: Who voted?". BBC. 23 August 2016. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  29. ^ "Metro Cinema Society: Irréversible". metrocinema.org. Archived from the original on 18 March 2007. Retrieved 18 March 2007.
  30. ^ Ansen, David (3 March 2003). "How Far Is Too Far?". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 1 January 2020.
  31. ^ Edelstein, David (7 March 2003). "Irreversible Errors". Slate. Retrieved 24 April 2016.
  32. ^ Erickson, Steve (21 September 2010). "'Enter the Void' Director Gaspar Noe Talks Sex, Drugs and Narrative Cinema". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 24 April 2016.
  33. ^ Palmer, Tim (2011). Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 978-0-8195-6827-4.
  34. ^ Palmer, Tim (2006). "Style and Sensation in the Contemporary French Cinema of the Body". Journal of Film and Video. 58 (3): 22–32, 27. ISSN 0742-4671. JSTOR 20688527.
  35. ^ "Irreversible: Straight Cut". Rotten Tomatoes. 10 February 2023. Archived from the original on 27 December 2023. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
  36. ^ "S.D. film critics name 'Dirty Pretty Things' the year's best". San Diego Union-Tribune. 30 December 2003. Retrieved 6 October 2024.

Works cited

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Further reading

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