Horrorfest 2016: Irreversible

I've been avoiding the 2002 French film IRREVERSIBLE for years because of its most famous scene: a brutal rape shot in one 10-minute long unbroken take. This flick shows up on all kinds of "best of" lists and I always push it to the back because I have to ask myself if I feel like sitting through that and the answer is usually no.

Alas, the time has finally come, and while IRREVERSIBLE is a very difficult movie to watch, and an even more difficult movie to enjoy, it is hard to ignore the fact that it is actually legitimately powerful and innovative filmmaking.

The way the film is structured is actually more complex than the story itself, about one night in the lives of a group of French partygoers who start off happy and normal and end up murderers and rape victims. The thing is, the story is told backwards – so we start with brutal revenge in an underground gay S&M club, hit the rape scene about halfway through, and end up with our characters preparing to go out for the night.

On top of this, the cinematography and editing start out frantic to the point where it's hard to even tell what's going on for long stretches of the film, and eventually calms down until it feels like a conventionally shot and edited film towards the end. This makes sense, because obviously the early passages are at the end of the night when these people's lives have been shattered and their reality has been turned upside down, so confusion makes sense.

Still, I'd be lying if I didn't admit I thought it was a little suspect. As the equally fascinating and grueling opening sequences went by, where we very rarely get a good glimpse at anything long enough to figure out just exactly what's going on, I thought to myself, "How much you want to bet the camera magically calms down and stays still as soon as we get to the rape scene."

Unfortunately, I was right. Magically, as soon as we get to the brutality against Monica Bellucci's character, the camera's suddenly locked down, and we get to see the whole thing in excruciating detail. Now, it wouldn't be totally fair to just leave it at this. Obviously there are artistic reasons for this: the filmmakers want to make us look at it, experience how awful it is, won't allow us to look away, all that stuff. Still, why not the same examination of the S&M club early on? Again, I guess because by that time the characters are drugged up and confused and the club itself is disorienting, etc.

So what am I trying to say? I'm not sure. I guess, I simultaneously admire the way this film was made and the way this story was told, because it was a unique and expressive and appropriate way to do it, while also suspecting that it might be a little convenient that maybe some prurient interests can be fulfilled along the way.