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Irreversible
Irréversible
2002 · Film · 97 min
Directed by Gaspar Noé
A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished.
4 negative8 neutralfrom 12 commenters
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12 comments on Hacker News
Blood Meridian as "rewarding"? I do agree it is a jaw-droppingly well written book, but it is excruciating to read and experience. This is on a par with recommending Irreversible as more rewarding for French cinema if I put in the time. Please stop destroying young minds. /s
I was really down after I left the movie. It was unexpectedly one of the most depressing movies I've seen, right down there with The Reflecting Skin, Irreversible and Black Rain. It is a good movie, and I'm pleased that there's room in the public attention for movies like this, but the way that people talk about it I wonder if we even saw the same movie. I'm in no hurry to watch it again.
The French movie “Irreversible” famously used these kinds of sounds to make it even more difficult to watch in theaters, I remember feeling a sense of danger and tension.
> I guess my skepticism of this is a bit unpopular - but the way they measured intrusive thoughts is whether or not the people mentioned the traumatic film they saw in a journal for a week.
That's a fair criticism. Doing research on real PTSD is tough -- everyone's experience is a little different, and is colored by their personal history -- and it'd be wildly unethical to put test subjects through an in-person experience stressful enough to induce lasting PTSD. Some studies, like the Tetris intervention one I linked elsewhere [1], used real trauma patients; others, like this one, have to rely on stress simulants like a violent film.
I will note, however, that Irréversible [2] -- the film this study used excerpts from -- is exceptionally violent. It's not a run-of-the-mill action film. One of the scenes the study probably used graphically depicts a man being beaten to death with a fire extinguisher.
[1]: https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/news/tetris-used-to-prevent-post-traumatic-stress-symptoms
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irr%C3%A9versible
Wow, all of them, you must watch a ton of movies too. So you know my difficulty in finding new ones, maybe! Ides of March I haven't seen, that looks great! And I actually agree with your ranking perfectly. I only feel bad that nightcrawler and prisoners are side by side, when there's a pretty wide gulf between them in terms of how memorable they are.
I assume you've seen Place Beyond the Pines since it has Ryan Gosling, and Requiem for a Dream I think everyone's seen, and idk if you'd like Irréversible; I didn't because its story doesn't quite keep up with its violence, but it is quite a jarring film.
Frankly, excluding movies that are only exhibitions of violence and don't have a story to match, there are precious few movies in this vein! Precious few films have the power to truly shock the audience, at least in this way. OH! Cloverfield Lane is pretty solid. Very tense.
Note that I'm only mentioning movies that are striking for their tension or sudden spikes of violence, since that was the original topic. Just remembered Fatal Attraction, too!
Ooh, and Ex Machina in its own way.
> "it's about the content, about the minute long close up shots of children 'grinding'"
This is not the right criterion to evaluate a film's intent.
Action movies spend most of their screen time showing killing. Horror movies contain extended torture scenes. Gaspar Noé's "Irreversible" has a 10-minute extremely realistic rape scene, but it would be absurd to claim that it's a pro-rape film.
Fair enough, but do note that's not what most people (or dictionaries) mean by "escapism" -- and your interpretation will puzzle people who use it in a derogatory manner. When discussing fiction such as movies, books or shows, the most commonly accepted meaning is of a thrilling fantasy, usually with a strong component of wish-fulfillment or adventure, that allows one to be distracted of the boring realities of actual life.
Neither Requiem for a Dream nor Irréversible are escapism in that sense. In fact they are terrifying movies, with zero wish-fulfillment, and which often remind you of real life rather than distracting you from it.
As an aside, if what you got from those movies was "at least I don't have it that bad" then you got a completely different message than me...
I tend to agree. Movies in general seem to be escapism[0]. Even incredibly depressing/artful movies like Requiem For A Dream, Joker (since it was brought up on this thread), Irréversible, The Truman Show, Martyrs, Saw, etc. are a form of escapism.
Now, each person may have their own preferences as to what type of escapism they want, but ultimately it's really just spending a few hours at a theatre or in front of a TV.
(We could argue about the intellectual merits of each of the films I've mentioned, but that's irrelevant as to whether they're escapism or not.)
Hot take: The problem isn't "shallow movies" or similar. It's that well-enough-off people are increasingly getting bored.
[0] Hell, I'd even extend that to most art.
This is the process of eroticization, of making distasteful things appealing, seen a lot in film. Schindler's List does this with the Holocaust, Titanic sidesteps it by overlaying a love story, Irreversible confounds it by [spoiler] ending at the beginning of the story, and so on.
I worked at an Indie Film Theater, and we had the Gaspar Noe film "Irreversible" - it was Unrated. As in, the Distribution company didn't even bother submitting it to the MPAA, knowing it would get the dreaded X Rating in the US. So we got a copy and it was Unrated.
We had at least 3 signs posted in the window at the box office with the same text on all of them: Unrated is not "open for all ages" - we will not sell tickets to this film to anyone under age of 18. Unrated is because the material is extremely disturbing by even artistic standards. No refunds.
I watched "Irreversible" in the theater, and it completely ranks up with "Stevie" as one of the most visceral and deep and dark things I've ever seen in a cinema. So I was completely equipped to tell people "Do not buy tickets to this movie. You will not like it."
One couple was on a date. Late-20s, white, good mood. No other films were showing / starting in a time they liked, so they picked "Irreversible" and I warned them. Then warned them again. They got defensive, telling me off basically that they were adults and would watch whatever they wanted.
When they came back to the box office about 30 minutes later, I knew which scene they'd just witnessed, and they were scarred for life, but like zombies, came back to try and get a refund. I let my manager take care of it.
Point being, sometimes adults think they're mature, but it's a lot more complicated than that. I'm not advocating showing a 5 year old "Saving Private Ryan" intro on a loop for a weekend, but some of these "protections" have mission creep of responsibility - who is really accountable in family development when it comes to Art (rationally speaking), Free Individuals or Federal Regulations?
You could make the case that owning a movie such as Irreversible(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290673/) would be punishable with jail time under this law.
There are much better laws that could be be put in place, or that already are in place to protect women from sexual violence.
I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but the way western europe is moving at the moment. It's starting to look more and more like the morality police is taking over.
and goodbye, Irréversible, Stockholm International Film Festival's winner for best film.