Movie Review: Irreversible (Irréversible) by Gaspar Noé

Hi everyone,

I just watched Irreversible and I do feel the adverse effects of doing so. As such I decided to post something about this somewhat great movie.
So let’s roll.

The movie starts backwards, so you’ll start the session by reading the credits. Fun stuff. The problem is when the reel actually starts. Like I said, it was purposely compiled backwards, so the start is actually the end of the story. You will see Marcus (Vincent Cassel) seeking revenge for the rape of his girlfriend Alex (Monica Belucci).

The beginning of the reel is then relatively disgusting, with sexual explicit gay scenes all around and brutality at its best, especially when you see

Pierre (Albert Dupontel) crushing a man’s face with a fire extinguisher.

In the Cannes Festival, 200 people were reported to have left the movie during the first 20 minutes. So prepare yourself to press the STOP button on your DVD player. You’ll want to do it.

Short detailed summary:
A couple truly in love. Alex and Marcus prepare themselves for a party, and you actually see them just like a normal couple. She suspects that she is pregnant (you’ll find this out later), and brings up the suspicion to her boyfriend Marcus, who tries not to think to much about it without a confirmation (just like every other man).

They will then go to the party, where Marcus consumes a large amount of cocaine. Devastated with that situation, Alex leaves the party on her own and makes her way back home, walking to the subway through a dark, strobe-lighted passage. As she goes through it, she spots a man (Le Tenia) hitting and yelling at prostitute. She tries to walk away from the situation, but he does not let walk away from the scene, as she had obviously seen the hitting. He decides then to rape her on the same passage. Le Tenia is a homossexual, hence he did force her brutally to have anal sex. (You will watch this scene completely unlike other movies. You will watch it from the beginning to the end without skipping violence or the act itself!) Once he finished his job, you’ll see Alex in deep shock, trembling all around and trying to escape from the scene. Le Tenia decides to not let her do that without violently almost beating her to death. Alex enters a coma state, completely disfigured by Le Tenia’s punches and several kicks on her face.

You will then see Marcus (remember this is all backwards!) getting out of the party with Pierre (Alex’s ex-boyfriend) with a 1,5L bottle of water, typical of a junkie. Marcus apparently didn’t care much for Alex and had let her go home devastated by his behavior on the party. As soon as Marcus walks down the street he will see an ambulance. As every other people around, he gets closer to see what happened. He then sees nurses getting Alex to the ambulance completely disfigured and in a coma. Marcus panics and then 2 other guys from the neighborhood convince him to get revenge, and offer help to track down the man who did it in exchange of money. Marcus accepts the offer and his road to revenge starts at this point. The 2 men tell him that they have found a purse on the passage with an ID Card belonging to “Guillermo Nuñez”. They find out that this was actually a transvestite prostitute, and that he was actually the one being beaten up by Le Tenia on the passage, as Alex as going through it. Guillermo (aka Concha interpreted by Jara-Millo) tells them the name of the man they are looking for: Le Tenia. He also tells them were to find him: at “Rectum”, a gay S&M club in Paris.

As they search for this location, Marcus reveals himself a newly changed man: A total animal seeking for revenge. This portraits very well how a man can react to such event and was criticized by many cinema critics, however Noé stated that it just had to be “as realistic as possible”. You’ll see Marcus in a mix of complete despair and anger, virtually hitting everything on his way to find the criminal while Pierre (a Philosophy teacher, Marcus friend and Alex’s ex-boyfriend) constantly tries to calm him down. Finally when Marcus enters the bar (”Rectum”) he starts to ask everyone he sees about Le Tenia. He accidentally found his boyfriend masturbating (anal) on the corner (this scene is really disgusting). He then starts to beat up this guy, as he was trying to get into something with Marcus and was not providing him any kind of relevant information about the whereabouts of Le Tenia. Then suddently Marcus spots 2 guys on a corner and asks them if they knew Le Tenia. Ironically, one of them as Le Tenia (tip for identifying him: He is sniffing Poppers, which he did also while raping Alex, while the other one didn’t appear to be addict to it). One of those 2 men walk away when asked who was Tenia, and Marcus identifies him as being the one. He then starts to beat him, but fell down after a punch and pushing of the same individual and falls down. The same guy profits from that to break Marcus’ right arm and tries to rape him in front of the nasty gay S&M croud (no one moved a single finger to help Marcus there).

Then Pierre, who was with Marcus all the time reaches for a fire extinguisher and bashes this man, until he is dead with no face at all (you actually see this skull - it’s a very realistic and not recommended scene for people with a weak stomach).

Pierre is then arrested and is sentenced to 10 years in prison, Marcus is taken to the hospital and apparently survives everything - so does Alex.

My opinion:
In my honest opinion, the victim of the whole story is Pierre. Not only he loses his girlfriend which he loves unconditionally to a younger and drug-addicted friend, but he is also the one that ultimately revenges her and takes 10 years of his life imprisioned due to Marcus’ lack of care with Alex (Marcus can be considered guilty by letting Alex walk out of the party all alone, in those streets of Paris - especially during the night).

What I believe that will ultimately get you frustrated is: Pierre didn’t kill the right man.
Le Tenia was actually the guy standing on the left side of the guy that Marcus started the fight with. After this guy is dead, you can actually see Le Tenia laughing. So justice wasn’t done anyway; and Pierre gets the sentence; while Marcus was the one that insisted on it and gets away with a broken arm.

This is a very interesting story based on REALITY, not on Hollywood dreams. Things do not always end as they should.
So, to conclude this, the facts are below.

Facts:

• Marcus can be blamed for letting Alex walk out alone.
• Alex should not try to walk away by herself on that kind of neighborhood.
• Pierre lost his girlfriend to Marcus and he is still the one doing something about it, paying 10 years of his life for the same fact.
• Once Alex left, Pierre tried to get Marcus to look out for her, which he did but it was too late. In the end Pierre appeared to be a more appropriate man for Alex.
• Pierre didn’t kill the right man. Le Tenia watched his friend dying for him and didn’t move a finger neither. Instead, he was smiling. (this was the most frustrating fact for me)

I think everyone can learn a lot with this movie. Even me!
The streets are always plenty of this kind of animals, especially at night. Never let your girlfriend walk out on you like that during the night. For girls, the message is the same: never walk out alone during the night, especially on dangerous neighborhoods.

Movie cover:

Click on the image to download the full-sized cover.

Special Thanks:
Thanks to João Soares (Hash_Gordon) for recommending the movie!