Irreversible (2003)

★★★
Director Gaspar Noé did not endear himself to me with his earlier effort I Stand Alone, which featured a character so hateful that he surpassed analysis. He was simply a man who hated the world and expressed it with a never-ending narration filled with obscenities and insults. His follow-up Irréversible is more focused. It has something to say about the characters in the story. It has a unique narrative structure that reveals how rage can overcome even the most peaceful of men. The movie opens with the end credits scrolling in reverse (downward). The credits then tilt as if reacting to what the next hour will bring. They eventually spiral out of control. Noé's name appears last, and there is a pause. He really wants you to know who made this. After a brief visit with I Stand Alone's butcher (very likely), played once again by Philippe Nahon, we get plunged into a chaotic scene in which a desperate and infuriated Marcus (Vincent Cassel) goes on a rampage in a homosexual B.D.S.M. club looking for La Tenia for reasons to be made clear later.

Irréversible starts with the aftermath of a crime, then rolls back to see the crime, then goes back more to see the events leading up to the crime. What happened before that could have led to Marcus's rampage? He and his friend Pierre (Albert Dupontel) navigate the Rectum, the name of the B.D.S.M. club where the two friends hope to find La Tenia. Marcus is angry. He yells at the patrons and can barely contain his anger. The camera records these events in an apparently unbroken shot that lasts for many minutes. A constant and pulsating hum dominates a soundtrack already laced with Marcus's shouts and the perverse responses he receives from the club regulars. Noé wants to invoke a feeling of nausea for several reasons. He wants to highlight Marcus's emotional state. He wants us to be disgusted at this location, where men in dominatrix gear beg for sleazy intercourse as if it were an addiction. He wants to set the stage for the movie's most notorious scene. Finally, Noé wants to create a contrast to later scenes, which happened earlier in the day and feature a loving couple unsuspecting of the dark encounter to come.

Rolling back the clock, we observe Marcus and girlfriend Alex (Monica Bellucci) at a party. He becomes disillusioned and pushes Alex away. She's had enough of his behavior and leaves. While crossing the street using an underpass, she runs into La Tenia (Jo Prestia), a vile and pitiful excuse of a human who accosts the lovely Alex and rapes her for nearly 10 minutes. The shot is unbroken, and Alex's screams are filled with fear. To make the scene even more disturbing, Noé introduces a bystander in the background who walks into view and hesitates, then leaves without interference. He doesn't want to get involved. This stranger's apathy is just as pathetic as La Tenia's actions and is another sign of the sickness that separates a civilized society from an uncivilized one. From here we go back in time and learn a little more of Pierre and his relationship with Alex. This explains his actions at the Rectum. Going back further, we visit the happy couple at home. Marcus and Alex are in love and express their love with their playful talk and tender touches and kisses. The end stands in stark contrast with how the story began.

This is a movie that is less about who committed the crime and the search for the assailant. It is more about its execution and how it keeps our sympathies with the victim instead of shifting our attention elsewhere after the crime. Tell the story in chronological order, and we would see Marcus and Alex at their best, with a bright future in front of them. That is destroyed thanks to a horrible crime, after which we might forget the happy couple. Our focus would be placed squarely on Marcus's desire for revenge. The movie would end, and we would have a revenge movie with no purpose since Pierre does not attack La Tenia. Going backwards, we see the last thing Noé wants us to see, which is Alex in a park, occupying a world miles away from the one she will later enter. We can ponder what was lost instead of a revenge gone wrong. Going in chronological order has its place too. Abel Ferrera's Bad Lieutenant featured a rape scene, but the possibility for redemption for Harvey Keitel's Lieutenant is clear only in a movie with a classic structure. Ferrera's movie is very much about the events after the rape, whereas Noé's movie wants our attention to turn to the events before the rape.

The movie's presentation of events also forces us to re-examine Pierre's actions against the rapist. Marcus and Pierre are ready to tear the club apart looking for La Tenia. They find someone who might be him. Marcus is immobilized, but Pierre takes over and exacts revenge. Is it justice? Told chronologically, the movie might think it's about justice or at a minimum a movie that wants to dispatch the bad guy for our entertainment. Instead, we see the revenge first, and without context, our natural reaction is disgust. Once we get the context, our natural reaction is unchanged since we now know who is La Tenia. Regardless of the severity of the crime, Marcus and Pierre should have restrained themselves. Pierre's actions were not justified, especially considering who he actually attacked. What if La Tenia was caught in the act? That certainly changes things, but he was not, and blind with rage Marcus and Alex go vigilante with little hope of getting any cooperation from the Rectum's deviant patrons. This should not suggest that a movie like this told chronologically couldn't work. Jumping ahead, we have 2009's The Last House on the Left, which was a rape and revenge movie made with skill and acted with fierce conviction. (Wes Craven's original Last House on the Left, on the other hand, was weak.)

Above Alex's bed is a poster for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Noé put it there for a reason, and I don't think it is because he was suggesting that Marcus and Alex were film buffs. Stanley Kubrick's tale of optimism pointed to a future in which mankind would eventually take the next step in its journey through time and space. Irréversible is not trying to send a similar message, but it is suggesting that Alex's future is not irreparable. Though this event takes place earlier in the day, the movie's emotional arc runs forward regardless of the order of events. Noé takes us through a set of emotions that starts with disgust and anger and ends with the tearful revelation of a relationship that will be tragically upended. There is darkness ahead, but there is also light. Alex can and will emerge healed. Her future remains under consideration because the movie poster placement precedes it and captures our attention. The poster wouldn't be there if Noé didn't want us to contemplate its meaning. Irréversible is a shocking, violent film. Getting through the first half is an endurance test that makes Requiem for a Dream look tame by comparison. The second half, though, has much to say about how rage can unearth an instinctive drive for revenge, and that's in addition to the second half's reinforcement of a life viciously interrupted. Noé has a point he wants to make, and reverse chronological order is the tool he uses to achieve it.

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