Thursday, May 08, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: The new nihilism

Irreversible plumbs malevolent French depths

By Mike Prevatt

There is no disclaimer strong enough for the unwatchable nihilism in Irreversible--which is just as well: To scare you from seeing this bold, maddening work is to regard human atrocity as mere sensationalism.

Fashioned after Memento (the story is told backwards) with Kubrickian elements of horror and voyeurism for added effect, this graphic drama from provocative French filmmaker Gaspar Noé (1998's I Stand Alone) is a hopeless account of a woman's rape and murder, and the failed attempts by her lover and friend to avenge the attack.

The film disorients from the start, with a quasi-philosophical conversation between two characters, before the camera careens dizzily toward Rectum, a seedy gay club where, eventually, Marcus (Vincent Cassel) will seek out the assailant of his girlfriend, Alex (Monica Bellucci), followed by pal Pierre (Albert Dupontel). There ensues the most stomach-churning depiction of malevolence you've probably ever witnessed: the unrelenting, up-close face bashing of a man who actually isn't the killer.

Your threshold for brutality is again tested mid-movie, when a pimp (Jo Prestia), discovers the disgruntled Alex in a tunnel and proceeds to anally rape her. This harrowing scene lasts a punishing nine minutes and concludes with Alex being smashed into a coma.

How does Noé attempt to justify such viciousness? He doesn't really--but for better or worse he masterfully manipulates the viewer's emotions, which, ultimately, is what all good artists seek to accomplish. Whether you seek to experience this sort of extremism depends on how much sadism you can stomach. Remarkably, Noé ends his movie on a bittersweet note. The film's final third offers traces of redemption that are only foiled when you recall the earlier philosophizing about time being irreversible and destroying everything.

Many commentators have dismissed Irreversible as depraved, misogynistic and homophobic, but the film's latter-half impressionism doesn't allow for such simplistic criticism. With its frenetic camera work, strobe lights and regressive storyline, the film does warrant accusations of pretentiousness. Yet Noé deftly establishes a specific atmosphere--an unnerving, spastic vision matching an inhumanity that is almost too compelling to avoid.