Irreversible

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I think I might have been impressed by this at a younger, more impressionable age. The unltraviolence didn't bother me nearly as much as all that cheap, corny fatalism and the film's relentless and earnest desire to, like, totally mess with our heads. "Time destroys everything"? Deep!

Can anyone help me to understand the appeal of this? It's hard to be wowed by the reverse narrative after Pinter's "Betrayal" and even that Seinfeld episode (and most likely others, like Memento, which I haven't seen). It's hard to be impressed by a "message" that seems like it might be the "whoa, dude" outcome of a stereotypical stoner conversation.

Am I just afraid of giving myself over to nihilism and nothingness, or is this really just callous, shallow sound and fury signifying nothing?

Discuss (if you like)...

― Captain Sleep (Captain Sleep), Friday, 11 October 2002 08:44 (twenty-three years ago)

I want the soundtrack

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 11 October 2002 10:25 (twenty-three years ago)

there's a Banglater track on the latest James Lavelle/Global Underground compilation that i assume is new and from the film - 'Night Beat' - its pretty good i think...tho the compilation on the whole isnt really

― blueski, Saturday, 12 October 2002 01:07 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

'corny fatalism', yeh that's it: 'seul contre tous' suffers from this too: to the point that it's horrible to watch: not because what the narrator is saying is true nor because the narrator could believe it's true: but because the actual writer wrote it and thought it worth recording.

― cozen. (Cozen), Saturday, 27 December 2003 22:58 (twenty-one years ago)

An incredible film - the best new film i have seen for the last 3 or 4 years, but i'm not really up to saying why at the moment. I'm too tired.

― jed (jed_e_3), Saturday, 27 December 2003 23:52 (twenty-one years ago)

you're reading 'straw dogs'!

― cozen. (Cozen), Saturday, 27 December 2003 23:55 (twenty-one years ago)

yes i know what your getting at but i don't have a problem with it.

― jed (jed_e_3), Sunday, 28 December 2003 00:09 (twenty-one years ago)

i ws getting at the horrific unceasingly intense fatalism in both (just in case you thought i might have been getting at coffee-table populism which i don't really have too much of a problem with.).

― cozen. (Cozen), Sunday, 28 December 2003 00:15 (twenty-one years ago)

haha! yes i realise that - whats wrong with unceasingly intense fatalism?*

― jed (jed_e_3), Sunday, 28 December 2003 00:21 (twenty-one years ago)

*yes i know it sucks obv.

― jed. (Cozen), Sunday, 28 December 2003 00:22 (twenty-one years ago)

gasp!

― jed (jed_e_3), Sunday, 28 December 2003 00:53 (twenty-one years ago)

sorry i meant

gasp!

― cozen (jed_e_3), Sunday, 28 December 2003 00:53 (twenty-one years ago)

cozen otm

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 28 December 2003 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I saw Irreversible as the opposite of fatalism. The philosopher character (not Cassell) doesn't strike me as being unable to do anything but kill the (wrong) guy because he is driven by fate, but rather that there is both (A) an existential realisation of his ability to step outside of who he is and do what he would not normally do (smash a guy's head in with a fire extinguisher), and also (B) a psychological/spiritual regression to a level of pre-civilised savagery (i.e. the total surrender to the instinct for violence as signifier of revenge [not revenge itself because it is the wrong guy]). I'm tempted to side with (A) as being my primary understanding of the motivation of the film though, as the philosopher (what's his name? Phillipe? Laurence?) demonstrates an extreme awareness of and (almost) control over his own actions andf thoughts throughout the film (it is only an 'almost' control because he cannot allow himself to either enjoy the party or escape/express his obvious infatuation with Bellucci's character). As he caves the chap's skull in in The Rectum there is a level of intelligence in his eyes which belies the primordial instict to savagery and implies (to me) that his violence is a much more cultivated and deliberate act; he is doing it not because he has to but because he can. He gains a degree of total control over not only his body but over the victim's body also, by destroying it; previously the only control he has had over himself is his intellectual faculties. Emotionally he is out of control and physically he is out of control. His strength is mental/intellectual and is abstracted from his physical/emotional self; thus the deliberate act of violence is a terrible coming together of these two strands of his identity, the intellectual and the physical, and a subjugation of the emotional (as it is the emotional [reaction to the attack upon Bellucci's character] which causes the coming together, causes the violence, and which is destroyed by it).

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Sunday, 28 December 2003 15:16 (twenty-one years ago)

but did you enjoy the movie?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 28 December 2003 15:48 (twenty-one years ago)

enjoy?

― jed (jed_e_3), Sunday, 28 December 2003 15:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Um. You know it's a CGI cock, right?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Sunday, 28 December 2003 15:54 (twenty-one years ago)

god, this movie is on way too many top 10 of 2003 lists. have the critics seen only 10 movies all year?

― todd swiss (eliti), Sunday, 28 December 2003 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

haha straw dogs! that's funny

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 5 January 2006 19:57 (nineteen years ago)

i think the film is much more about tragedy than revenge. all i ever read about are the rape and murder scenes but the scenes that resonated with me were all the romantic vignettes in the film's second half.
-- mark p (mark.p****...) (webmail), January 18th, 2004 10:57 PM. (Mark P) (link)

this is otm, from the other irreversible thread; I thought it's last 30 mins were exceptional

haha some choice 'being a twat' from me on the other thread too: I feel despite the brazenness and disregard of his film that gaspar nöe is a man of clear moral sense.

trackback: Irreversible: C/D

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 5 January 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

welcome to january folx!!!

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 5 January 2006 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

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