Irreversible (2003)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Say you were reading a novel. The reputation of this novel preceded it, it had been called one of the most intense ever written. The novel is 11 chapters long, and those chapters are only one or two long protracted sentences each. The second to last chapter is beautiful and brilliant. It recontextualizes the chapters that preceded it, and is so perfectly written that it feels like a privilege that you get to read it. But the remaining ten chapters ranged from pointless to artistically and morally inexcusable. Would you still read the novel?Gaspar Noe's Irreversible consists of 11 scenes, many of them seemingly filmed in one take. It is one of the most self indulgent films I've seen. It fails to make any point or to have any meaningful aesthetic; instead it simply exists to show that Noe could make a film like this. This is the greatest sin a film can commit. It's fine to make bold visionary films, it's fine to make films as unpleasant as this. But to make them for ego, and not for characters, ideas, stories or images is reprehensible.Irreversible is a vigilante movie at it's core. The success of this genre hinges on the audience knowing what is being avenged. We don't learn what is being avenged until scene 10, and it is beautiful, and we are forced to think "was the previous hour worth it?" I don't think it was. By structuring the film the way he has, Noe has robbed us of any characterization or motivation-we are left with ugly senseless violence that has the emotional impact of watching pigeons squabble on the street. And the movie still has the gall to think this will hurt us. Obviously a ten minute rape scene will be shocking. It does not take skill to make this.Maybe the pointlessness is Noe's point. Maybe this is an anti reactionary, anti violence movie. The racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and violence shown here ultimately are so useless one could draw the conclusion that the movie is telling us to stay away from these modes in times where we crave revenge. But honestly, I just have no reason to care. I have no reason to think about this movie any more.

Normally, when I write a review, I just write about my feelings about the movie. But people have been so off the mark in their interpretations that I just felt like I had to speak up because everyone is either LOVING the movie for the wrong reasons or HATING the movie for the wrong reasons. So let me try to explain as best as I can what themes this movie was exploring:1. Barbarism is Toxic Pierre was the sensitive, sweet nice guy all evening who hated Marcus' violent behavior and kept begging him to turn back away from his revenge fantasy. Pierre was so disgusted by Marcus' behavior that he even called him a caveman and an animal. Yet he was the one who wound up savagely killing a man, not Marcus. Why? First Marcus kept bullying him and calling him gay at the party. Later, he was exposed to both the rabid homophobia and racism of both Marcus and the two thugs for hire as they attacked a Chinese cab driver and slashed a transsexual. Even though Pierre was above the violence, thuggery, homophobia and racism, the barbarism was so toxic that like a poison, it wound up infecting him before he even realized what was happening. By the time he did, it was too late. So this is the first theme of the movie. Even if you are by nature a tolerant, nonviolent, civilized person, if you're exposed enough to barbaric behavior, you can become impacted by it.2. Tragedy and Evil Impacts Everyone, No Matter Who You Are Irreversible did this very strange thing where it started out looking dark, brown and muddy and then, as it progressed, became more colorful and cheerful until it faded to white. So we get this picture of Alex's life being portrayed as oh, so innocent and sweet like a Disney cartoon, and The Rectum's victim's life as being dark and disgusting. The point was to contrast Alex's "acceptable, wholesome" life with that of the Rectum victim to say that evil and tragedy doesn't play favorites. Anyone can be a victim, whether you are a young, beautiful, popular affluent woman or an outcast hated by society who lives out a debauched life of "sin" in the seedy underbelly of BDSM clubs. 3. Tragedy Can Happen at Any Time Many people wonder what the point of having Alex be pregnant was all about, and on a gorgeous spring day. Well, the point was to say that tragedy can happen at any time in your life. Tragedy doesn't say, "Oh, it's a beautiful day today and you just got some great news. Think I'll wait for you to have a bad day and when it's gloomy and raining outside!" It can strike whether you're having a great day or whether you're having a lousy day, whether it's sunny outside or raining.4. There's No Such Thing as FateAlex had a dream that morning that seemed like a premonition of her rape. Later she suggests that she believes in Fate. Irreversible says this isn't true, that what we call "fate" is a matter of "accident"--in other words a series of bad timing, decisions and chance happenstances that, had they played out a little differently, would've completely changed the course of events.This is what the whole time jumping "gimmick" is about. Every time the movie jumps back in time, it jumps back to a specific moment when, had the characters done or said something differently, would've averted Alex's rape and The Rectum murder. For example, the reason why the party scene starts specifically at the part when Marcus does coke is that if he hadn't done that line of coke, he and Alex wouldn't have had the fight that led her to leave the party by herself. BTW, the guy who shows up at the underpass as Alex as getting raped? That was showing that her rape wasn't fated; it was a classic case of bad timing. The guy was a pedestrian who had entered the underpass just moments after Alex did. Had Alex entered the tunnel just a few minutes later than she had, he would've been there right behind her and La Tenia wouldn't have touched her. Again, the point being that even at the last minute, Alex could've avoided the rape, that just because she had a premonition that morning doesn't mean it was "in the cards" and she was doomed as soon as she woke up that morning.5. You Can't Undo the PastWhenever Irreversible "time jumps", it jumps to a moment in time when, had the characters acted and behaved differently, would've changed everything--had Alex not listened to the idiot at the stoplight who told her to take the underpass, had Marcus listened to Pierre every time he begged him to turn back from his revenge mission, had Marcus not done coke, so on and so forth. We look at all the things they could've done differently that night and go, "Aw, if only..." But the problem is that time isn't reversible. That's what the man in the beginning of the film means when he says, "Time destroys everything." That's why the movie is called Irreversible. What's done is done. Irreversible-10/10 In any event, whether you loved the movie or hated it, I urge you to reconsider your feelings based on this review. Irreversible is a lot more nuanced than lovers are giving it credit for and a lot less nihilistic than haters think it is. It is very thought provoking, and I hope that maybe some day, more people will take a second look at it and try to see what Noe was trying to explore with this movie.

Take a regular mediocre story line, add gratuitously explicit violence and tell it backwards for no reason. Memmento is great, because the backwards cut puts you in the protagonist's shoes. But here it's totally pointless.

You know? The thing I most value when I am watching a movie is the chance that catharsis could happen. Something that happens in very few occasions but something that I chase frequently. Then there are the movies that leave me lukewarm, which are the majority. Then there is Irreversible, which provoked in me something resembling an anti-catharsis. I would never have imagined such a rejection for a movie, such a feeling of dirt. Did the movie want to explore the limits of cinema? He succeeded but at the expense of cinematography. I would encourage anyone to ignore such a bad taste movie. The end is not justified. The means are not such. There is controversy and morbid about this film but it has nothing to do with art, I think.