Tipper Gore, get out the big guns. 'Irreversible' is here, and its just thrown one helluva first punch. No amount of boycotting, picketing, prohibition or name-calling could stop this blistering piece or moral certitude from landing, smoking, on the doorsteps of video stores all across the country. Ive watched it myself. Walked on down to the store and picked it up, right off the shelf. That was three nights ago, and since then, my mind keeps coming back to it, wheeling around and locking down on this aspect of it or that, unable to stop relating to something I wish Id never watched in the first place.
Yeah, I thought Id seen it all. Im one of those people who quotes lines from 'Reservoir Dogs' at parties and re-enacts the infamous crucifix in crotch scene from 'The Exorcist', laughing a ll the while. I do not believe in censorship. To put it very basically, I think there is an inherent right that exists for all of us as humans to create whatever art we may please, without restriction, as long as no one is physically hurt against their own will in the process. It is that belief that has made a movie like 'Irreversible' possible, and I find myself trying very hard not to choke on my own foot in the aftermath.
French Argentinean director Gasper Noe, who created a mild stir with his grating 1997 movie, Seul Contre Tous (I stand alone), and has elicited similar responses with his two other, smaller movies Sodomites (1998) and Carne (1991) has managed to craft something that is either a staggering work of monumental genius, or one of the most deplorable pieces of trash ever t o imprint celluloid depending on who's watching of course.
Believe me when I tell you its the next step in desensitization. The film caused massive waves with its world premiere at Cannes in 2002, causing people to walk out merely twenty minutes into the movie, with many more following less than halfway through. It experienced similar reactions with its North American release at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals, and just three nights ago, it was all I could do to hang on as I sat there on the couch, feeling every excruciating second pass by as I watched the infamous nine-minute rape scene roll out in front of me for the first time.
Yes kids, Irreversible has arrived, complete with deleted scenes, teasers, trailers and all the other fluff that comes with the typical DVD packa ge these days. The movie itself, however, is far from typical. Picked up by Lions Gate Films the company thats grown from producer of teeny art house films to major Hollywood player in the last seven years due to taking risks just like this one (American Psycho, Dogma and House of 1000 Corpses are merely three among a long list of movies that stank of far too much controversy for any of the non-independents to touch) the movies official video release date in North America was August 5, but it reached my neck of the woods a little late.
To be completely honest, I had no idea what I was getting into. I hadnt heard of it, but my viewing partner for the evening said he had been thoroughly warned of its graphic nature. Whatever. Id seen 'Faces of Death', for gods sake. Nothing could phase me.
Think again.
During the first moments of the only murder scene in the movie, which takes place about twenty minutes in, I felt my lungs seize up and tears well to the sur face of my eyes. I immediately paused it and demanded to know if what we were watching was snuff, because if it was, I was not watching anymore. My friend assured me it wasnt, and after a few minutes of regrouping we continued on, with me clinging to the knowledge that this was indeed make-believe as my only protection. What unfolded was a work of art that managed to shake my moral and ethical codes right down to the core, its equivalent non-existent in film and found only in Bret Easton Ellis hyper-controversial novel 'American Psycho'.
The movie, unrated, travels backward in time a la Harold Pinters Betrayal and Christopher Nolans Memento beginning with the ending sequence in which the camera swoops about among the buildings of France uncontrollably, denying the viewer any real chance to get a foot-hold on what is up or down and managing to create the actual physical feeling of vertigo. Along with this, Noe also employed the use of extremely low-frequency sound dur ing this opening sequence to add to the effect. The entire movie is filmed in such a way as to give the appearance of having no edits, creating a frighteningly realistic and personal effect similar to that of stream-of-consciousness writing another strange similarity to Ellis novel.
From there it soon takes us into The Rectum, a gay S&M club, where it finds Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and his reluctant friend Pierre (Albert Dupontel) in a heated and continuously confrontational search for the pimp known as La Tenia (The Tapeworm). The soundtrack throbs relentlessly as the camera continues to swoop about, exposing us to any number of homosexual acts in progress, revealed only in the blood red light of the clubs interior. As the scene unfolds, you can literally feel the violence coming. Once it transpires if you can actually sit through it you may find yourself wondering if you will be okay.
The film continues from there to reveal the vicious rape and beating of Mar cus girlfriend Alex (Monica Bellucci) by La Tenia in an underground tunnel also blood red. This is the pinnacle moment of the movie, fueling most of the controversy that surrounded it. If you can make it through this scene, the rest of the film is a breeze. For the first time since I watched 'The Shining' at seven years of age, I had to look away. I had to close my eyes and try not to listen. No longer is Noe's camera swooning about in its prior stupor it has locked on to the scene in front of it, seemingly bolted to the floor as it unflinchingly records what is without a doubt one of the most disturbing things you may ever witness on screen.
And what is the point of all this? That's a question you can't help but have. This is a movie that doesn't allow you to walk away without an opinion, and maybe that's the point. You get the feeling, as the movie continues its backwards flow from the nauseating aftermath of the beginning into earlier scenes of a friendlier and fi nally tender nature, that Noe had a very succinct knowledge of what he was doing when he constructed it this way. To have it move forward in chronological order as a simple rape and revenge drama would be exploitation, hands down. By having the murder take place in the first half-hour of the movie, with the motive as yet unknown, it makes the violence all the more horrifying. It is only later that we are shown the reason for it after we've already witnessed the vicious fate that befalls the supposed perpetrator so there is no lust for revenge, only a gnawing question about the nature of morality and justice.
So, does that make all of this okay? Does that validate a nine-minute long rape scene that might and most likely will be seen by children too young to understand the nature of art and censorship?
Before I bought the novel 'American Psycho' I read a few passages from it in the bookstore. I found it on a low shelf in Chapters, along with a number of other c opies right next to it, waiting to be picked up and read by whoever might wander on by. Once I had finished it easily one of the most exploitative, graphic, misogynistic and gratuitous works of popular literature ever written the most disturbing thought that remained with me was the ease with which I was able to attain it. In Australia, the book comes wrapped in cellophane and you have to purchase it over the counter, showing ID before it's yours. Justified? I'd like to say yes, but once again, I don't believe in censorship in any form. If you've read '1984' you'll catch my drift.
So here I am, shaken again for the first time in years by a piece of art that's already found its place in the world and, now that I've seen it, in my own head. Last night I sat down to watch 'Resevoir Dogs' again with a couple of friends who to my astonishment had never seen it before. During the first bloody scene one of my friends lost a little colour in his face and had to move furth er away from the television. I sat there meanwhile, feeling a strange sense of anesthesia as if a new layer of repaired tissue had bulked up around all of my emotional sensors and wondered just how numb these beliefs of mine might be able to make me.
http://www.writingup.com/blog/slipshoeswilliam
Author:: Kyle W. McMillan
Keywords::
Irreversible,Gasper Noe,Monica Bellucci,controversial films,Reservoir Dogs,Tipper Gore,Lions Gate
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