Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.
It’s evident within the first minute of Irreversible that it’s going to be a rough ride. That first minute, when we see the closing credits of the film indicate that nothing is going to be what we expect here. What follows is one of the most disturbing and upsetting 100 minutes ever seen on film. Certainly there are films that go to more difficult or horrible places than Irreversible, but none that I can think of with this combination of horrifying imagery and physically upsetting camerawork and ugly headspace. Irreversible is less of a movie than it is a visual and physical assault on the nervous system. I’m not entirely sure how to process it.
Irreversible is not the first film in the new French Extreme, but it is one of the most infamous. I’m not going to attempt much of a plot summary here beyond the basics. Alex (Monica Bellucci) and Marcus (Vincent Cassel) are in a relationship and Alex discovers she is pregnant. However, there are problems with the relationship because Marcus drinks too much and flirts with other women. Angered, Alex leaves a party and encounters a man named Le Tenia (Jo Prestia) who is viciously beating a transgendered prostitute named Concha (Jara-Millo). He turns his attention from Concha to Alex and brutally rapes her. Marcus and his friend Pierre (Albert Dupontel) then hunt for Tenia and exact a brutal revenge. All of this is show in reverse order. We see the aftermath, then the revenge, then the rape, then the lead up to the rape, and then Marcus’s and Alex’s life before these incidents.
