Confessions of a Netflix Addict

Monday, September 05, 2005

You'll Want to Reverse This

In foreign films this week I have a movie I found by accident, like most of the movies I find. It's called Irreversible. Irrerversible, in simple story form is about a man, Marcus, bent on revenge for the unspeakable act inflicted on his girlfriend, Alex. Marcus' friend, Vincent accompany's him on his tunnel vision search for the culprit, maybe because he also felt very deeply for Alex at one point, or because Marcus is so out of control that he needs someone there to watch his back.

At any rate, the moves starts out backward, working its way from end to beginning. Camera angles swirl and twirl and make you feel like you're on a merry-go-round/space shuttle. Needless use of camera movement. This is a French film, subtitled.

I don't know nothing else of the Director, Gasper Noé, and never heard of him before this. This film is brutal, violent, disgusting at times, and...did I mention violent? At one point I ran hurling to the bathroom. I don't want to give things away, suffice it to say you will never see a sexual assult like this in American cinema.

Perhaps it is too violent, too misogynistic, too merciless at times for some of the more squeamish audience. Parts were long, confusing and became anvilicious. The directors intentions were clear more than once, we didn't need to be hit over the head.

The road to get to the truth was brutal, chaotic, interesting, heatbreaking and ultimately unsatisfying and emotionally draining. I only watched it once and can't bring myself to go through it all again.

On the one hand we empathize with Marcus and can see where he is coming from. He didn't see the ugly details, only the aftermath, but we do, so we certainly want him to catch the shitty guy. Confusing shots, noise and lots of dark are used quite effectively in the beginning as Marcus (with Vincent on his heels) forges his way through an S&M club, hot on the heels of the suspect. It's frantic, just as Marcus is, and we feel his anger, panic, confusion and rage as he searches.

For a movie working backwards, we are still kept pulled into the story, even if we mistep along the way. Hard to say if I liked it...but I did. I liked the relentless search by the two male leads, I liked the relationship bits, I liked getting backstory on Alex's relationship with both Vincent and Marcus, and I liked Marcus and Vincent's friendship.

A certain fact we learn later seems to serve as plot device, only to tug our heartstrings harder, but I could have done without. Things were already bad enough.

I'm not reccomending all the movies I post here because some may not be everyones taste--like this one. I'm just telling you what I found and how I felt about it. I thought it had interesting elements, and should be viewed if for no other reason than it's foreign and seeing how they do it is usually and eye opener.

This is certainly a movie you'll be saying something about.

posted by Gunngirl @ 4:00 PM

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