Irréversible
Encyclopedia
Irréversible is a 2002 French drama film written and directed by Gaspar Noé
, starring Monica Bellucci
, Vincent Cassel
and Albert Dupontel
. The film employs a non-linear narrative
and follows two men as they try to avenge a brutally raped girlfriend. The soundtrack was composed by the electronic musician Thomas Bangalter
, who is best known as half of the band Daft Punk
.
Several reviewers declared it one of the most disturbing and controversial films of 2002. Irréversible competed at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival
and won the Stockholm International Film Festival
's award for best film.
A young woman named Alex is reading An Experiment with Time
by John William Dunne
in a park, surrounded by playing children. Beethoven's
7th Symphony
is heard in the background. The camera spins around faster and faster until it blacks out into a strobe
effect, accompanied by a pulsing, roaring sound. A rapidly-spinning image of the cosmos can be dimly perceived. A title card reads: "Time destroys everything" — a phrase uttered in the film's first scene.
Marcus and Alex now lie in bed after sex. Alex reveals she might be pregnant, and Marcus is pleased with the possibility. They prepare to go to a party, and Marcus leaves to buy wine. Alex takes a shower, then uses a home pregnancy test that confirms she is pregnant. She is elated. She sits on the bed clothed, her hand on her belly. A poster for Stanley Kubrick
's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey
, with the tagline "The Ultimate Trip", is above the headboard.
At a nearby Paris Métro
station and aboard a subway train, the trio discuss sex in a metro station. Pierre refers to the fact that he and Alex were once dating, but are no longer in a relationship. He implies that Marcus stole Alex from him.
Some time passes. Alex and two male friends, Marcus and Pierre, at a party. Alex is annoyed by Marcus' unrestrained use of drugs and alcohol and his flirtatious behavior with other women, and consequently decides to leave the party.
On her way home, Alex sees a man (le Tenia, or "the Tapeworm") beating a transsexual prostitute named Concha in a pedestrian underpass. Once he sees Alex, he lets go of Concha and turns his attention to Alex. Alex attempts to flee, but le Tenia catches her and threatens her with a knife. Le Tenia pins Alex to the ground and brutally rapes Alex anally for several minutes of screentime. Le Tenia then brutally beats her.
A short period of time passes. The audience learns Alex is in a coma. Marcus and Pierre are questioned by the police. They then talk to a street thug named Mourad and his friend Layde. The two gangsters promise to help them find the rapist, whom Mouard claims is le Tenia, if they get paid. Marcus and Pierre go looking for the man who raped Alex.
Marcus and Pierre track down Concha, the rapist's last victim. At first, she refuses to talk to them. After Marcus threatens to slash her with a piece of broken glass, she identifies le Tenia as the rapist and says he can be found at a gay BDSM
nightclub called The Rectum.
Marcus and Pierre go to The Rectum. Marcus finds le Tenia standing with another man. Thinking this is Le Tenia, he assaults him but this person wrestles Marcus to the ground, breaks Marcus' arm, and attempts to rape Marcus on the club floor. Pierre grabs a fire extinguisher and kills this unknown individual by crushing his skull whilst Le Tenia - the source of all the havoc - stands there groggily (perhaps not believing he got away). Police arrest Pierre and put him in handcuffs. An ambulance arrives, and Marcus is put on a stretcher and taken from the club. Outside, a group of men shout homophobic
insults at them. The audience learns that the murdered man was not le Tenia after all. Rather, the man standing next to him in the club was the real le Tenia.
Across the street in a small apartment, two men are talking about sex. One of them is "the Butcher", the protagonist of Noé's previous film, I Stand Alone
. In a drunken monologue, the Butcher reveals that he was arrested for having sex with his daughter. Their philosophical musings shift to the subject of the commotion in the streets outside. Without looking out the window, they derisively attribute the commotion to the patrons of The Rectum.
16mm process. Many of the scenes were shot with multiple takes that were then invisibly edited together using digital processing, creating the illusion that the scene is filmed all in one shot, with no cuts or edits. This included the rape scene, portrayed in a single, unbroken shot, lasting nine minutes. Although the penis can be seen after the rape, this was later digitally added in editing with computer-generated imagery
. Another example is with the scene where Pierre bludgeons a man to death, crushing his skull. Computer graphics were brought in to augment the results, as initial footage using a conventional latex
dummy proved unconvincing. The process can be watched in the bonus material of the film's DVD. The film uses extremely low-frequency sound
during the opening 20 to 30 minutes to create a state of disorientation and unease in the audience, including during the nine-minute rape scene.
. 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. 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. 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".
Critical response to the film was divided. As of 2011, it held a score of 56% positive verdict from 119 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes
, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The American film critic Roger Ebert
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.
The film 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 Les Invasions Barbares
. It grossed $792,200 from theatrical screenings.
Gaspar Noé
Gaspar Noé is an Argentine filmmaker and the son of Argentine painter and intellectual Luis Felipe Noé. He graduated from Louis Lumière College and is the visiting professor of film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland...
, starring Monica Bellucci
Monica Bellucci
Monica Anna Maria Bellucci is an Italian actress and fashion model.-Early life:Bellucci was born in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy as the only child of Luigi Bellucci, who was born in the British protectorate of Zanzibar, East Pakistan...
, Vincent Cassel
Vincent Cassel
Vincent Cassel is a Cesar award winning French actor probably best known to English-speaking audiences through his performances in the Ocean's Trilogy of films and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.-Personal life:...
and Albert Dupontel
Albert Dupontel
Albert Dupontel is a French actor and film director. He started his career as a stand-up comedian...
. The film employs a non-linear narrative
Nonlinear (arts)
Nonlinear narrative, disjointed narrative or disrupted narrative is a narrative technique, sometimes used in literature, film, hypertext websites and other narratives, wherein events are portrayed out of chronological order...
and follows two men as they try to avenge a brutally raped girlfriend. The soundtrack was composed by the electronic musician Thomas Bangalter
Thomas Bangalter
Thomas Bangalter is a French electronic musician best known as a member of the French house music duo Daft Punk. He has also recorded and released music as a member of the trio Stardust, the duo Together, and as a solo artist including compositions for the film Irréversible.Thomas Bangalter owns a...
, who is best known as half of the band Daft Punk
Daft Punk
Daft Punk are an electronic music duo consisting of French musicians Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter . Daft Punk reached significant popularity in the late 1990s house movement in France and met with continued success in the years following, combining elements of house with synthpop...
.
Several reviewers declared it one of the most disturbing and controversial films of 2002. Irréversible competed at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival
2002 Cannes Film Festival
The 2002 Cannes Film Festival started on 15 May and ran until 26 May. The Palme d'Or went to the Polish-French-German-British co-produced film The Pianist directed by Roman Polanski.-Jury:* David Lynch * Sharon Stone* Michelle Yeoh...
and won the Stockholm International Film Festival
Stockholm International Film Festival
The Stockholm International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Stockholm, Sweden. It was launched in 1990 and has been held every year in the second half of November...
's award for best film.
Plot
Irréversible contains thirteen scenes presented in reverse chronological order. They are discussed here in chronological order.A young woman named Alex is reading An Experiment with Time
An Experiment with Time
An Experiment with Time is a long essay by the Irish aeronautical engineer J. W. Dunne on the subjects of precognition and the human experience of time. First published in March 1927, it was very widely read, and his ideas promoted by several other authors, in particular by J. B. Priestley. Other...
by John William Dunne
John William Dunne
John William Dunne FRAeS was an Anglo-Irish aeronautical engineer and author. In the field of parapsychology, he achieved a preeminence through his theories on dreams and authoring books preoccupied with the question of the nature of time...
in a park, surrounded by playing children. Beethoven's
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
7th Symphony
Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, in 1811, was the seventh of his nine symphonies. He worked on it while staying in the Bohemian spa town of Teplice in the hope of improving his health. It was completed in 1812, and was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries.At its debut,...
is heard in the background. The camera spins around faster and faster until it blacks out into a strobe
Strobe light
A strobe light or stroboscopic lamp, commonly called a strobe, is a device used to produce regular flashes of light. It is one of a number of devices that can be used as a stroboscope...
effect, accompanied by a pulsing, roaring sound. A rapidly-spinning image of the cosmos can be dimly perceived. A title card reads: "Time destroys everything" — a phrase uttered in the film's first scene.
Marcus and Alex now lie in bed after sex. Alex reveals she might be pregnant, and Marcus is pleased with the possibility. They prepare to go to a party, and Marcus leaves to buy wine. Alex takes a shower, then uses a home pregnancy test that confirms she is pregnant. She is elated. She sits on the bed clothed, her hand on her belly. A poster for Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
, with the tagline "The Ultimate Trip", is above the headboard.
At a nearby Paris Métro
Paris Métro
The Paris Métro or Métropolitain is the rapid transit metro system in Paris, France. It has become a symbol of the city, noted for its density within the city limits and its uniform architecture influenced by Art Nouveau. The network's sixteen lines are mostly underground and run to 214 km ...
station and aboard a subway train, the trio discuss sex in a metro station. Pierre refers to the fact that he and Alex were once dating, but are no longer in a relationship. He implies that Marcus stole Alex from him.
Some time passes. Alex and two male friends, Marcus and Pierre, at a party. Alex is annoyed by Marcus' unrestrained use of drugs and alcohol and his flirtatious behavior with other women, and consequently decides to leave the party.
On her way home, Alex sees a man (le Tenia, or "the Tapeworm") beating a transsexual prostitute named Concha in a pedestrian underpass. Once he sees Alex, he lets go of Concha and turns his attention to Alex. Alex attempts to flee, but le Tenia catches her and threatens her with a knife. Le Tenia pins Alex to the ground and brutally rapes Alex anally for several minutes of screentime. Le Tenia then brutally beats her.
A short period of time passes. The audience learns Alex is in a coma. Marcus and Pierre are questioned by the police. They then talk to a street thug named Mourad and his friend Layde. The two gangsters promise to help them find the rapist, whom Mouard claims is le Tenia, if they get paid. Marcus and Pierre go looking for the man who raped Alex.
Marcus and Pierre track down Concha, the rapist's last victim. At first, she refuses to talk to them. After Marcus threatens to slash her with a piece of broken glass, she identifies le Tenia as the rapist and says he can be found at a gay BDSM
BDSM
BDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
nightclub called The Rectum.
Marcus and Pierre go to The Rectum. Marcus finds le Tenia standing with another man. Thinking this is Le Tenia, he assaults him but this person wrestles Marcus to the ground, breaks Marcus' arm, and attempts to rape Marcus on the club floor. Pierre grabs a fire extinguisher and kills this unknown individual by crushing his skull whilst Le Tenia - the source of all the havoc - stands there groggily (perhaps not believing he got away). Police arrest Pierre and put him in handcuffs. An ambulance arrives, and Marcus is put on a stretcher and taken from the club. Outside, a group of men shout homophobic
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
insults at them. The audience learns that the murdered man was not le Tenia after all. Rather, the man standing next to him in the club was the real le Tenia.
Across the street in a small apartment, two men are talking about sex. One of them is "the Butcher", the protagonist of Noé's previous film, I Stand Alone
I Stand Alone (film)
I Stand Alone is a 1998 French drama film, written and directed by Gaspar Noé, and starring Philippe Nahon, Blandine Lenoir, Frankye Pain and Martine Audrain. The original French title is Seul contre tous, which means "Alone against all". The film focuses on several pivotal days in the life of a...
. In a drunken monologue, the Butcher reveals that he was arrested for having sex with his daughter. Their philosophical musings shift to the subject of the commotion in the streets outside. Without looking out the window, they derisively attribute the commotion to the patrons of The Rectum.
Cast
- Monica BellucciMonica BellucciMonica Anna Maria Bellucci is an Italian actress and fashion model.-Early life:Bellucci was born in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy as the only child of Luigi Bellucci, who was born in the British protectorate of Zanzibar, East Pakistan...
as Alex - Vincent CasselVincent CasselVincent Cassel is a Cesar award winning French actor probably best known to English-speaking audiences through his performances in the Ocean's Trilogy of films and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.-Personal life:...
as Marcus - Albert DupontelAlbert DupontelAlbert Dupontel is a French actor and film director. He started his career as a stand-up comedian...
as Pierre - Jo Prestia as Le Tenia
- Mourad Khimaand as Mourad
- Hellal as Layde
- Jara-Millo as Concha
- Philippe NahonPhilippe Nahon-Biography:Nahon is best known for his roles in French horror and thriller films, including I Stand Alone, Humains, Calvaire, Irréversible, The Pack and Haute Tension, and he has been featured as a nameless butcher in three films by Gaspar Noé – Carne, I Stand Alone, and Irréversible .-Filmography...
as the man
Production
Irréversible was shot using a widescreenWidescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
16mm process. Many of the scenes were shot with multiple takes that were then invisibly edited together using digital processing, creating the illusion that the scene is filmed all in one shot, with no cuts or edits. This included the rape scene, portrayed in a single, unbroken shot, lasting nine minutes. Although the penis can be seen after the rape, this was later digitally added in editing with computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
. Another example is with the scene where Pierre bludgeons a man to death, crushing his skull. Computer graphics were brought in to augment the results, as initial footage using a conventional latex
Latex
Latex is the stable dispersion of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium. Latexes may be natural or synthetic.Latex as found in nature is a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants . It is a complex emulsion consisting of proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins,...
dummy proved unconvincing. The process can be watched in the bonus material of the film's DVD. The film uses extremely low-frequency sound
Infrasound
Infrasound is sound that is lower in frequency than 20 Hz or cycles per second, the "normal" limit of human hearing. Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perceive infrasound, the sound pressure must be sufficiently high...
during the opening 20 to 30 minutes to create a state of disorientation and unease in the audience, including during the nine-minute rape scene.
Reception
The film premiered in France on 22 May 2002 through Mars Distribution. It competed at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival2002 Cannes Film Festival
The 2002 Cannes Film Festival started on 15 May and ran until 26 May. The Palme d'Or went to the Polish-French-German-British co-produced film The Pianist directed by Roman Polanski.-Jury:* David Lynch * Sharon Stone* Michelle Yeoh...
. 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. 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. Newsweek
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
stated that "If outraged viewers (mostly women) at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
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".
Critical response to the film was divided. As of 2011, it held a score of 56% positive verdict from 119 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The American film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
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.
The film won the top award, the Bronze Horse for best film, at the 2002 Stockholm International Film Festival
Stockholm International Film Festival
The Stockholm International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Stockholm, Sweden. It was launched in 1990 and has been held every year in the second half of November...
. 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 Les Invasions Barbares
Les Invasions barbares
The Barbarian Invasions is a 2003 French Canadian comedy-drama film directed by Denys Arcand. It is the sequel to Arcand's earlier film The Decline of the American Empire and is followed by Days of Darkness. The film was produced by companies from both Canada and France, including Telefilm Canada,...
. It grossed $792,200 from theatrical screenings.
See also
- Irréversible (soundtrack)Irréversible (soundtrack)Irréversible is the soundtrack album to the highly controversial film of the same name, as well as a solo album by Thomas Bangalter. The album was produced by Bangalter, who is best known for being one-half of the French house duo Daft Punk. The tracks "Outrun" and "Extra Dry" were featured on the...
- Human reactions to infrasound
- New French ExtremityNew French ExtremityNew French Extremity is a term coined by Artforum critic James Quandt for a collection of transgressive films by French directors at the turn of the 21st century. The filmmakers are also discussed by Jonathan Romney of The Independent...