Whooooaaa. I saw this last night. Merry Christmas and a Happy Fuckin' New Year to all of you.
This film has been reviewed twice here on RIA. I can only imagine that this is so because, either, few have seen it, few have dared to see it, or it was just too much of an effort to put this film-as-art, this IMDB's-Top-25-Most-Gruesome-Films-ever-made, this hallucinogenic journey into the darkest side of human nature into words. It is, along with Roman Polanski's "The Tenant", one of the two most haunting films I've ever seen. Let me put it this way: if your date claims to like "horror" movies, do NOT even think about curling up on the sofa with this one. This is not a horror movie; it is a nightmare.
From an artistic point-of-view, "Irreversible" gets at least a *5*. It is presented in reverse, with the first 3rd of it filmed in shades of gray and red. This portion...the finalé...is filmed without a single stop or cut with an all hand-held delivery. The language is all French, but when you're being pulled and warped through a worm hole and are experiencing something as intense as this, the language is hardly a barrier. I'd call it a sensory overload. Just when you've become hypnotized by the sounds and the visuals and you're thinking that this is an important cinematic effort, you come to realize that the lines of coke you just snorted were actually Drano and it's too late. The crystals have dissolved into your sinuses and are working their way into your brain like a scorching pyroclastic lahar.
As the film progresses to its beginning, events leading up to "the end" (which you have already seen) are revealed. The music becomes less frenetic and colors are added, but director Gaspar Noé somehow manages to find a way to plunge the knife...just one more time...into the viewers' psyches. The film-as-art perspective is astonishing and I give credit to Noé for having the chops to bring this vision to life.
The dilemma, here, is that the theme, the subject, the topic and the motivation that drives this film is incomprehensible to the viewer....so sick and depraved...that it brings my rating down. (5 + 1= 6 / 2 = 3). We're not talking about "Saw"-like depravity. We're talking about things we read or hear about everyday, things that we have become desensitized to...until Noé decides that we need to see them, first hand. Oh, yah...the dilemma. The film wouldn't have worked without its chosen theme. All of the cinematic wizardry that he poured in to "Irreversible" would have been for naught.
I couldn't possibly write this review without mentioning that it stars Vincent Cassel and his real life wife of 13 years...Monica Bellucci. She, once again shows that, not only can she take direction, but is Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy's gift to the world and is damn proud of that. She's magnigorgeouslyunfuckinamazinglybeautiful. Cassel delivers an epic performance.
Pass the mind bleach, please.