Irreversible (Gaspar Noe)
***Spoiler warning***
It's rather difficult to talk about Irreversible without giving things away.
There are many great examples of the 'non-linear narrative' style of film-making. In fact, two of the greatest films ever made are prime examples of this: The multiple flash-backs of Citizen Kane and the different character viewpoints of the events of Rashomon. Film-makers as revered as Godard, Bergman, Fellini, Alain Resnais, Robert Altman and Nicolas Roeg have all made this style of film-making their own. A lot of directors working today, such as Stephen Soderberg, Paul Thomas Anderson, Darren Aronofsky, Christopher Nolan, Wong Kar-wai, Gus Van Sant, Richard Linklater, Quentin Tarentino (most notably with Pulp Fiction) and of course David Lynch - who often tries the patience of his audience with his seemingly random jumble of plot strands. These film-makers know that it doesn't have to be 'beginning, middle and end' and they exploit this idea to the hilt. Quite often with astonishing and rewarding results. It can enrich and deepen our perception of, what is sometimes quite a straight-forward story - making us examine it in a different, maybe more profound way. It also can make a film seem original and ground-breaking when in fact they are, quite often, at best, pastiching ideas from other film-makers and at worst simply stealing them (Tarentino anyone??). But I don't think I had seen a film go (literally) backwards before I saw Memento. It starts with the end of the story, going backwards a scene at a time until we get to the beginning of the story. The reasoning was partly a plot devise and partly so we empathise more with the character's problems with memory: It's a jigsaw puzzle of a murder mystery that begins with a murder and we go back in time to discover the motivations and reasons behind the death. Along the way we discover he has the memory of a goldfish (almost!) - forgetting everything after a short period of time, making everything a renewed experience for our hero as it is for us, the audience. Unfortunately the film doesn't stand up to more than a couple of viewings. Once we have the answers there's not a lot to come back for. The same is true with The Prestige and The Usual Suspects.
Now we have Irreversible. On a superficial level, it seems unoriginal - using the same device as Memento of a backwards moving narrative to discover the events leading up to a murder. But with rather different intentions and certainly more profound results. It worked for Christopher Nolan but it has more emotional depth and purpose here.
Irreversible is a gruelling and extremely troubling film that not only tests our patience and stomachs but our sense of morality and empathy too as it literally forces us to endure the hellish events of the characters on screen. Right from the start, we are plunged, unflinchingly, into the hellish events of it's protagonists. Though calling it unflinching would be a massive understatement.
The film opens with a camera rolling and undulating through the air. We see a building, it's windows and bricks coming and going into shot. Seemingly random and without reason. And then we move into a room within the building. In it are two men, one naked and one clothed, talking. The room is lighted with a harsh yellow light that makes the walls and, consequently the men, look kind of greasy and damp. Instead of light that cleanses, here it seems to be exposing something unclean and corrupt. The camera carries on moving in and out, rolling and undulating. Like someone drunk or high. It has a disconcerting affect and I'm still not sure of the reasoning behind it - are we being put off guard in some way maybe? Are we being reminded that we are watching? I already had in mind the opening sequence of Psycho. Except, in that film, we are less aware of the camera, as it smoothly tracks across the city skyline and straight through the window into the bedroom of the illicit lovers. But here, we are constantly reminded of the camera. Made less comfortable in our voyeurism if you like. This devise is carried on through to the next scene as the camera seems to move out the window and we observe the events going on outside. This is really where the story begins (ends?). From this point on, the film - and accordingly, the camera - becomes much more frenetic and disturbing. The scene prior, feels more of a prologue - almost soporific in feel (despite the subject of their discussion!) It gives us a clue as to how we'll feel by the end of the film, as one character says "time destroys all things". But before we can get to the end (beginning?) we have Hell to contend with!
A dizzying and very disturbing montage of shots and sounds - entwined bodies, grunts and groans, whip cracks, the flash of an erect penis, heads bobbing, men wanking etc - hurtles us headlong into the goings on in an S&M nightclub. The story has now begun to move backwards and we are plunged straight into what is, undoubtedly, the most realistically explicit (simulated) murder ever put on film. Totally unflinching - there's no camera turning away here. It's up to us to turn away. It's our choice. I strongly suspect, this is where a lot of people began to leave the cinema. That's their loss.
Ironically, as the story progresses (regresses?), we realise this scene requires us to pay more attention than we realise. Or feel comfortable with! Especially when we discover who the real villain is in this story!
From this scene on, the story carries on backwards. The frenetic camera going into overdrive - at one point seemingly see-sawing in and out of a closed car window for example. It's disconcerting of course but totally necessary. A static camera would have had a relaxing effect that wouldn't have felt right and I think we'd empathise less.
When we first see Monica Bellucci as Alex we only see her from behind. The camera stays with her all the time. Not cutting away. We have to stay with her. The camera tells us we are not gonna leave her. We can't (there is only a brief cutaway as the camera quickly looks to the subway sign and back at Monica) We follow her down to the subway and straight away we know it will happen here - in the subway. Just like the nightclub, the subway is blood red. Just as Pierre and Marcus descended into Hell when they entered the nightclub, so now has Alex in the subway.
I am still in two minds as to how necessary I feel it was for the rape to be so utterly unflinching and relentless. During the attack, for the first time in the film, the camera is static. It's at Alex's level throughout. Not just encouraging our empathy but forcing us to endure the assault with her. It's the most draining and upsetting piece of cinema I have ever seen (excepting the real-life events depicted in the Russian film Come and See). But the violence that is inflicted on Alex after the rape was a push too far for me. We have already gone through the rape with her - the tears and the knot in my stomach are testament to that - so the violent assault that followed, seemed, not just redundant but felt a bit like rubbing our faces in it. Up till we see Alex for the first time the camera hasn't stopped moving - jumping about, undulating and swaying, seeming to move straight through car windows. But during the rape, as I said, the camera has been static - at Alex's level. We empathise with her so completely we go through the assault with her. It's a draining and deeply upsetting scene that tests our tolerance levels to the limit. (I can totally relate to those that walked out of the cinema at this point). Then the makers simply cross the line. Just when we think it is over the violence resumes, and at one point the POV changes from Alex to us, the audience. The camera swiftly and very obviously moves around the protagonists as if to 'get a better look' at her face as it is pummelled on the ground. It's a deeply unpleasant moment that actually reminds us of what we are - an audience. We may think we are empathising but we are still watching. Just like the men who watch the murder in the nightclub, they do nothing and simply enjoy the spectacle. Unlike the stranger that wonders into the background and walks off doing nothing to help, we are worse - we stay and watch. I felt a bit of deja-vu here and was reminded of Haneke's Funny Games. A film so totally devoid of humanity it disturbs me immensely that it has been given the Hollywood make-over.
But the film's final half hour gives us what Haneke's vile little film didn't. Not only relief but humanity.
From this moment on the film becomes a cleansing experience. As time goes ever further backwards - before the murder, before the rape - we see the characters how they were - happy, normal, in love, looking forward to the future. The backwards narrative begins to have a healing effect. Cleansing if you like. For the characters but more so for us, the abused and battered audience! Those that left the cinema during the murder or the rape miss the relief these scenes give us. It would seem that they are left only with the horror.
The scenes that come after the rape (precede the story) become brighter and far less frenetic. I have to say the scene of the lovers, Marcus and Alex, naked and bathed in a warm orange glow, are some of the most beautiful and natural (and sexy!) I have seen in a film. It made me weep. Maybe part of it was because of it's cleansing quality? It really feels like a couple happy and in love. Totally comfortable with each other.
The film culminates in the shots of Alex, alone, at turns looking radiant and at peace, holding her stomach - her unformed, unborn child. We can imagine that as the story has gone backwards that maybe the hellish events never happened. Or, in some way, we have been purged. After all, it's only a film! And this is the end really. Not the beginning. The closing shot of Alex, lying in a park, reading the book she mentioned earlier that she can't finish ("the future is already written") is almost Technicolor in look and how it makes us feel. The camera rolls away and over the lawn as children run in and out of shot, playing on the grass. The screen is filled with the a wonderful bright green from the grass. Green being the most calming and relaxing of colours (the reason it's used so much in hospitals). The screen fades to white, completing the cleansing theme. It's a truly beautiful moment. Can we relax? Not quite.
There is Beethoven on the soundtrack (a composer who alludes to 'fate knocking at the door' in his music) to remind us and the camera begins spinning wildly round and round as it did at the beginning of the film above the ambulances outside the nightclub. And when the screen goes white, it's not quite the cleansing white we need but a kind of grey that then begins to flicker wildly like a strobe light reminding, in case we get too comfortable of the hell that has gone before and in effect is to come for the protagonists.
The final shot is of the words "time destroys all things". It is a bit like hammering the message home but maybe we need it after being battered and beaten with such horrific imagery as the first half of Irreversible!
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