anybody else excited about irreversible?

[sharkstank]

i'm not sick or anything,but after reading a few reviews and hearing about people walking out at film festivals,i can't wait till it hits a local theatre gets it.it has a violent rape scene,brutality,monica beluccii,and film threat said it has the worst,most graphic and realistic death on film. guess the curiosity is going to put my butt in the seat.

[The Delfonics]

Ive already seen it. I downloaded it. However Im looking forward to the subtitles :). Overall not a very enjoyable film to watch more than once. That death scene isnt much more than what you would see in Horror films however the mood that has been set and built up to the death (which is about 25 mins in) makes it more horrific

[g05]

yes, i wanna see!

[platanero79]

yeah I want to see it too

[Scarface98.9]

It's a little bit hard to get excited for a movie with a 10 minute rape scene

[XCoRyX]

im a bit excited to check it out,but i havent seen any clips or trailers so i am not 100% sure.

[Jon Cocco]

The dark elements sound cool, but this movie seems like a total RIP-OFF of Momento. Correct me if I am wrong. The movie plays from end to beginning. It is a revenge story. The movie will start with a murder and end with what happened to the person who made the guy take revenge. It is one long backwards movie without the short-term memory. I am certainly interested in this film because of what can be modified to the same concept plot of Momento, but besides being controversial and more fucked up, this Irriversable looks to have not existed in the way it is made ... if not for Momento. Someone please post back to this if what I say is false. I have not seen this movie, but by the synopsis I found what I say hard to dismiss at this current time.

Also, isn't this film coming out this Friday on only limeted release in LA and NY? It might not come out as soon as we hope, or near a Ritz movie theater at all. This is not a mainstream film. I can already see that.

[SAI]

Jon. Its not a rip off of Memento, the only thing the films have in common is their timeline and here it serves a purpose while in Memento I found it gimmicky.

Here is my review of

IRREVERSIBLE

Dir: Gaspar Noe

Stars: Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel, Monica Bellucci

Plot Summary: Told backwards, Irrversible follows Marcus (Cassel), his girlfriend Alex (Bellucci) and her ex Pierre (Dupontel) from preparing for a party, to the journey there, to the party itself. Alex leaves after and argument with Marcus and is raped and beaten half to death by a man identified only as The Tenia. Marcus goes after Tenia, looking for revenge, followed by the reluctant Pierre.

Review: I feel that with this film the review ought to begin where it would usually end. The star rating. I have thought long and hard and decided not to give Irreversible a star rating, not because (as with Episode 1) it is so bad it does not even earn a single star but because my feelings about it are so complex and divergent that a rating would be impossible to assign and, more importantly, tell you nothing.

If you are a film fan you have probably heard about Irreversible. It caused a shitstorm at Cannes with many critics walking (and some running) out of the screening long before the film ended. Two people fainted at another festival screening where it goes, controversy follows, and it is easy to see why.

I suppose I ought to begin with the rape scene. This has been the main point of contention for the films many detractors (many of whom, it has to be said, have not seen the film). It is captured in a single shot, a NINE minute shot. That’s not a typo, the rape and beating lasts nine excruciating minutes. Can a sequence like this ever be justified? I think so. Most importantly it is what the extremes that the revenge goes to (something we have seen) hinges and needs to be horrible enough to give some justification for that. It also needs to be noted that the scene is possibly the least arousing scene ever put on film, something I have often noted in Hollywood films is how rape is often, if not put in a film to arouse, certainly not made to discourage that response. Look at the scene in The Accused, it’s pretty horrific but the amount of times the camera lingers on Jodie Foster’s exposed breasts could easily be construed as sending the wrong message. Look too at the controversial scene between Michael Douglas and Jeanne Tripplehorn in Basic Instinct, a rape scene clearly made to arouse its male audience._

The rape is also a perfect example of how effective Gaspar Noe’s direction is, not that he does much here. Indeed he simply set the the camera down and locks it in place for the whole ordeal. We can’t move, we can’t get away from the ugliness in front of us and this approach makes the scene more horrific than I could have imagined. I can not say clearly enough how wrong people are when they describe this film as incitement to rape. It brings home the sheer horror of the act in a way that could only be stronger if you were, in fact, going through it.

What is almost more horrific is that when the rape ends you know more is to come, and this is where Noe’s structure makes sense, we have already seen Alex as she looked after the rape and we know the beating is coming. When it comes it is truly awful, and utterly convincing. One moment has Alex take a forceful kick to the face and is so brutal it is almost palpable.

I’m pretty hardened to screen violence. I can revel in the gory excess of films like The Beyond, see past the violence to the satire in Natural Born Killers and hardly bat an eyelid during Re-Animator. This meant I thought I was ready for anything Irreversible might want to throw at me. I was wrong. The violence of this film shook me in a way I didn’t think fake violence could any more. What did it was the fire extinguisher.

We are perhaps fifteen minutes in to the film, and we are in a gay club called Rectum, following Marcus as he searches for The Tenia what we have already seen here is pretty awful but this will top it all. Marcus is attacked, to help his friend Pierre (who we will later find to be the sober, controlled, one) attacks a man with a fire extinguisher, hitting him in the face with the base until the man’s head is reduced to pulp. It’s a horrific image, made convincing by brilliant effects work and sound design. This scene is, almost a week later, still burned on my brain, no cinematic moment has ever affected me as much as this one.

Add to these images a camera that, for the first 20 minutes of the film, moves so constantly and in such a disorienting manner that you may lose your lunch to motion sickness and what you have is a film that, for 99% of people, is all but unwatchable and that alone makes it impossible to recommend.

There is a catch to all this though, Irreversible is brilliant.

Technically it is unlike anything you’ve ever seen, Noe uses his camera to reflect the state of Marcus’ mind (serene and still in the later, tender, love scene. Manic, continually whirling, and losing focus in the first act.) Cassel, Bellucci and Dupontel are beyond reproach and their fearless performances lift Irreversible far beyond the exploitation fare it might have been. The structure is intricate and clever (and in fact the story would be effective, in a different way, even if it were told chronologically, something that I can not say about Memento, a film that clearly inspired Noe in his structure).

Time destroys everything. The films tagline and, essentially, its message. I’m not sure I buy it, it seemed to me that coincidence had much to do with this film, it’s a series of insignificant events (the small argument Marcus and Alex have, her decision to leave alone) that add up to something much bigger.

Time may destroy most things but one thing I can say is that it won’t destroy my memory of Irreversible. I can’t recommend this brilliant film because of how stomach churningly violent and technically difficult to watch it is. I beg of you if you are epileptic (there are strobe lights throughout), prone to motion sickness, shocked or upset by violence in cinema or easily influenced by films do NOT see Irreversible. Ever._

If, however, you think you have the stomach for it then by all means see it, it will be unlike any other cinematic experience you have ever had. If you are human it will shock and disgust you but the stunning quality of it, both technically and (in particular) performance wise, may make it a rewarding, if difficult 99 minutes. If you do see it then do me one favour, don't say I didn't warn you.

[sharkstank]

what rating would you give it SAI?

[SAI]

As I said in the first paragraph I can't give a rating. Its not that it is bad, its a high quality film but I CAN'T recommend it because it is a deeply unsettling and nasty experience. I was actually shaking when I left the cinema.

Make of that what you will. Sorry I can't help more

[DaMovieMan]

Cant wait to see this movie.
Vincent Cassel is one cool motherfucker and Monica Belucci is my new found love...i adore her.
I cant download it from the net coz there's no fucking subtitles and my dvd club only has the R2 DVD where there are no English subs. DAMN IT!!!

I wanna see this movie so much.

DaMan