Irréversible
Irréversible | |
---|---|
Directed by | Gaspar Noé |
Written by | Gaspar Noé |
Produced by |
|
Starring |
|
Cinematography |
|
Edited by | Gaspar Noé |
Music by | Thomas Bangalter |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | Mars Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time | 97 minutes[1] |
Country | France |
Languages |
|
Budget | €4.6 million[2] |
Box office | €5.8 million[3][4] |
Irréversible (French pronunciation: [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.[5]
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".[6]
Plot
During a night in Paris, emergency personnel respond to an altercation at the Rectum, a gay BDSM club. Two men are taken outside the club: Marcus, who's being carried out on a stretcher; and Pierre, who's being arrested by the police.
The next scene shows a volatile Marcus and reluctant Pierre enter the Rectum in search of a suspected rapist known as Le Tenia. Marcus then proceeds to get into a fight with a man he suspects of being Le Tenia, 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 watches in amusement.
As the film progresses, it's revealed that the two men were attempting to avenge the rape and near-fatal beating of Alex, Marcus' girlfriend and Pierre's ex. Viewers discover that Alex had left a house party attended by the two men due to Marcus' boorish behavior and walked home alone through a
The last scenes of the film depict Alex, Marcus and Pierre earlier in the day where it's implied Alex left the more reserved Pierre for the uninhibited Marcus because he couldn't satisfy her sexually, which the former still holds frustration over. The film then reveals that Alex had a dream of herself in a red tunnel and received a positive result on a pregnancy test she took at the start of the day. In the final scene, Alex is shown reading in a park before the film transitions to a
Cast
- Monica Bellucci as Alex
- Vincent Cassel as Marcus
- Albert Dupontel as Pierre
- Jo Prestia as Le Tenia
- Fatima Adoum as Fatima
- Mourad Khima as Mourad
- Hellal as Layde
- Jaramillo as Concha
- Michel Gondoin as Mick
- Jean-Louis Costes as Fistman
- Philippe Nahon as the Butcher
- Stéphane Drouot as the Butcher's friend
Director Gaspar Noé has a cameo as one of the patrons in the Rectum.
Production
Irréversible was originally titled as Danger.[7] 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).[8]
Irréversible was shot using a
Computer-generated imagery was used in post-production for the penis in the rape scene.[16] Another example is the scene where Pierre beats a man's face and crushes his skull with a fire extinguisher.[17] CGI was used to augment the results, as initial footage using a conventional latex dummy proved unconvincing.[18] During the first sixty 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.[19][20] 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."[21] 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).[20]
Release
The film premiered in France on 22 May 2002 through Mars Distribution. It competed at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.[22] 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.[3]
A version of the film told in chronological order, Irreversible: Straight Cut (
Reception and legacy
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.[24] 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".[25]
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 58% based on 124 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 American film critic Roger Ebert, who awarded it three stars in his review, argued that the film's structure makes it inherently moral; that by presenting vengeance before the acts that inspire it, we are forced to process the vengeance first, and therefore think more deeply about its implications.[6]
Film critic David Edelstein argued "Irréversible might be the most homophobic movie ever made."[27] 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".[28]
The film received three votes in the 2012
Irréversible has been associated with a series of films defined as the
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.[33]
Accolades
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).[34]
References
- ^ "IRREVERSIBLE (18)". British Board of Film Classification. 21 October 2002. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
- ISBN 978-0-230-33697-1. Archived from the originalon 1 June 2022.
- ^ a b "Irreversible". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
- ^ "Irreversible (2003) - International Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo". boxofficemojo.com.
- ^ Against and For Irreversible - Film International
- ^ a b Ebert, Roger (14 March 2003). "Irreversible". Roger Ebert.com. Archived from the original on 29 March 2010. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
- ^ Gaspar Noé talks about his career, including his new film Vortex | BFI Q&A, retrieved 9 October 2022
- ^ Kohn, Eric (6 August 2016). "Gaspar Noé Says All Directors Are 'Sucking D*cks For Financing' And Women Enjoyed 'Love' More Than Men". Retrieved 23 August 2016.
- ISBN 978-1-137-47862-7.
- ISBN 978-1-57806-780-0.
- ^ American Cinematographer, Volume 84, No 2–6. ASC Holding Corporation. 2003. p. 20.
- ISBN 978-0-8265-1491-2.
- ISBN 978-1-4426-1558-8.
- ^ Macnab, Geoffrey (1 August 2002). "'The rape had to be disgusting to be useful'". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
- ^ "Why Gaspar Noé Directed on Cocaine, Masturbated in His Own Film and Shot a Live Birth". 29 October 2015.
- ISBN 978-0-231-85008-7.
- ISBN 978-1-84150-563-3.
- ^ Palmer, Tim (2014). p. 88–90
- ISBN 978-1-137-44438-7.
- ^ S2CID 191568755.
- ^ "IRREVERSIBLE (2002) – I feel dirty and uncomfortable". Horrornauta - Explorer of the Macabre. 19 January 2023. Retrieved 30 January 2023.
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: Irréversible". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 22 August 2011. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Metro Cinema Society: Irréversible". metrocinema.org. Archived from the original on 18 March 2007. Retrieved 18 March 2007.
- ^ Ansen, David (3 March 2003). "How Far Is Too Far?". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 1 January 2020.
- ^ "Irréversible (2002)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 23 September 2022.
- ^ Edelstein, David (7 March 2003). "Irreversible Errors". Slate. Retrieved 24 April 2016.
- ^ Erickson, Steve (21 September 2010). "'Enter the Void' Director Gaspar Noe Talks Sex, Drugs and Narrative Cinema". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 24 April 2016.
- ^ "Votes for IRRÉVERSIBLE (2002)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
- ^ "The 21st century's 100 greatest films: Who voted?". BBC. 23 August 2016. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-8195-6827-4.
- JSTOR 20688527.
- ^ "Irreversible: Straight Cut - Rotten Tomatoes". www.rottentomatoes.com. 10 February 2023. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
- ^ San Diego Film Critics Society Awards (2003) - IMDb
Sources
- Brinkema, Eugenie. (2004). Irréversible: A review. Scope.
- Brinkema, Eugenie. (2005). Rape and the Rectum: Bersani, Deleuze, Noé. Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies, 20(1), 32–57. https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-20-1_58-33
- Downing, Lisa. (2004). French Cinema's New 'Sexual Revolution': Postmodern Porn and Troubled Genre. French Cultural Studies, 15(3), 265–280. https://doi.org/10.1177/009715580401500305
- Grønstad, Asbjørn. (2011). On the Unwatchable. In T. Horeck & T. Kendall (Eds.), The New Extremism in Cinema: From France to Europe (pp. 192–205). Edinburgh University Press.
- Hickin, Daniel. (2011). Censorship, Reception and the Films of Gaspar Noé: The Emergence of New Extremism in Britain. In T. Horeck & T. Kendall (Eds.), The New Extremism in Cinema: From France to Europe (pp. 117–129). Edinburgh University Press.
- Keesey, Douglas. (2010). Split identification: Representations of rape in Gaspar Noé's Irréversible and Catherine Breillat's A ma sœur!/Fat Girl. Studies in European Cinema, 7(2), 95–107. https://doi.org/10.1386/seci.7.2.95_1
- Kenny, Oliver. (2020). Beyond Critical Partisanship: Ethical Witnessing and Long Takes of Sexual Violence. Studies in European Cinema, 19(2), 164–178. https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2020.1778846
- Wood, Robin. (2011, April 5). Against and For Irreversible. Film International. http://filmint.nu/?p=1475