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Marcus, his girlfriend Alex, and Pierre go to a party, but
when Marcus becomes a little rowdy, Alex decides to leave
by herself. She is advised by a prostitute that it would be
safer to take the subway, but instead she is violently attacked
and raped. Marcus and Pierre leave the party in time to witness
a badly beaten Alex being loaded into the back of an ambulance.
A couple of street hoods approach Marcus, offering to lead
him to the perpetrator for money. The hysterically outraged
Marcus agrees, and the hunt is on for the attacker and a dangerous
gay club...
The
so-called "clever" idea here is to edit the entire film, scene
by scene, back to front, so that the climatic moment is seen
first and we jump back in stages to the beginning. "Powerful...
stylish... acclaimed... a landmark movie..." says the promotional
blurb. No, it's not. Personally, I would use the words "chaotic...
disorganised... monotonous... pretentious..." I can see
the sense in playing with the structure - Ju-On: The Grudge
succeeded in concentrating on the viewpoint of separate characters,
before bringing them together for the conclusion - however,
by completely reversing the story there is no possibility
of character sympathy, or even following the plot with any
confidence.
Irreversible spends the first fifteen minutes showing
off-kilter images from the Rectum club, accompanied by a headache-inducing
droning from the soundtrack. If the director had tied a length
of rope to the camera and swung it around his neck, the viewing
public would probably have seen more. What we do see is for
the most part unappetising, to say the least. Suggestive scenes
of sodomy in the club, and a violent beating where a man's
face is reduced to a pulp. A prolonged rape scene, and linking
pieces of threatening behaviour and further violence make
this an unsavoury experience. Perhaps that was director Gaspar
Noe's intention all along, but it's not my cup of tea.
As
I explained in my review of Black
Sun, the intention of a film should be to provide
enjoyable and thoughtful escapism. In my opinion this is in
genuine bad taste - and boring, to boot.
For
those who can be bothered, there's a Behind-the-Scenes
feature on "Le Rectum" club; a commentary; a short film by
the director; and two music videos from Daft Punk.
Ty
Power
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