Irréversible (2002) is a French art film written and directed by Gaspar Noé, featuring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, and Albert Dupontel. Irréversible competed at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and won the Stockholm International Film Festival's award for best film. Many people would label the film as controversy or disturb to watch as the movie contained exposure of private part, brutally killing scene and a 10-minute long take rape scene.
Plot
The movie is performed in reverse-chronological order as the story was told backward. The story focus on a tragic event happened to Alex (played by Monica Bellucci), who was raped and brutally beaten by a stranger in the underpass of Paris when she walks back home from a party. Her current boyfriend and ex-boyfriend, Marcus (played by Vincent Cassel) and Pierre(Albert Dupontel) decided to seek revenge for Alex and ends up killing a wrong man in a gay club.
As the story is told backward, the movie starts with two men sitting in a room having a conversation and the camera pan outside of the window and shows Marcus and Pierre being wounded and arrested by police from a gay club, “The Rectum”. It continues with a flashback of why they are in the gay club, and more flashback explains how they found out Alex was being raped, how Alex leaving the party alone after argued with Marcus and how it leads to her terrible fate. The movie ends with Alex and Marcus enjoying their intimate moment and Alex dreams about herself sitting in a park and surrounded by children, unaware of the violence she would face few more hours later.
Analysis
The reverse-chronological order used in storytelling create suspense . Audience hardly understands what happen from the beginning of the film, it keeps audience to be curious about what causing this current situation and eager to know more. The truth will unveil itself as the movie goes on. It successfully kept the mysteriousness of the story even though the plot itself is very simple and straight forward. The structure of the movie gave us a very calm and happy ending while we all know choices they made for the next few hours will lead them to the irreversible fate, turning heaven into hell.
In the movie, red was often used as the sign of death, violence and hell. For example, the underpass where Alex being brutally raped and beaten was painted in red. Except for that, the scene when Marcus and Pierre went to “Rectum” to look for La Tenia and smashed a man’s skull with a fire extinguisher. Red, flashing lighting was used on the set, not only portray “Rectum” as an isolated, seedy world, and also hinting the bloodshed that was going to happen in that place.
Irréversible can be considered as contemporary expressionism as the movie employed the visual distortions of expressionist style. The hand-held camera is shaky throughout the whole movie especially in scenes that showing intense emotions, For example, when Marcus and Pierre were in the gay club, Marcus was in furious and madness after being high on boozes and drugs. The camera was spinning in high speed, briefly scanning through the gay club . The visual impact occurred when we get a glimpse of what was going on in that place. Except for that, the dizziness and confusion cause from the distorted visual emphasize the emotion of Marcus and Pierre. It also makes people in “Rectum” seem like they are insane as they indulge in sex.
Long shot was used throughout the whole movie and the editing only occurred between the "flashback" and purposely makes it look like it is been shot in one take. During the rape scene, the camera placed on the ground, filming the whole process of Alex being rape by Le Tenia without any camera movement or cut, making this scene seem very realistic and disturbing to watch as there is no any other effect to allow audience avoid looking at it.
In conclusion, the movie Irréversible is a well-designed film in technical and atheistic aspect, to delivered a story where all of the fate of the characters are written, and cannot be alter. The beautiful smile when Alex found out that she is pregnant will surely break audience’s heart as it reminding them what will happen next on her and her unborn child. Gaspar Noé did an excellent job to remind us the first line of the movie: "Time destroys all things".
Reference
- Roger Ebert (2003). Irreversible. Retrieved on June 4, 2016. From http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/irreversible-2003
- N. (2003, February 12). Irreversible (2002) Movie Review. Retrieved June 05, 2016, from http://www.beyondhollywood.com/irreversible-2002-movie-review/
- Prince, S. (1997). Movies and meaning: An introduction to film. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
