Irreversible

Rating:
Summary: Cant stop thinking about it
Review: Its hard to say if i really liked it or not. But i guess a movie that stays with you must have some kind of redeeming value considering most dumb hollywood movies i stop thinking about as soon as i get to my car. Obviously it isnt for everyone. The movie starts off so intense and dizzying that you hope it changes soon. Luckily each scene gets mellower and more normal so its worth sticking with it. Of course the famous head bashing scene is very disturbing. i had to watch it 3 times just to see how they did it. amazing cgi work on that part. Of course they didnt really have to show it but the director wants to shock and make you uncomfortable. this movie is not for your everyday filmgoer that likes Legally blond and jim carrey movies.Its more for someone with an appreciation for some different, original [but not always pleasant] filmaking. It shows how actual camerawork and music can make you unsettled . I watched it last night and all day ive been scouring the net to read every possible thing about it[reviews, why it was made, actors opinions]. Be warned though, some of it can be brutal.

Rating:
Summary: you know what it's about.
Review: This movie is about rape. A very graphic rape happens in the movie and then there are a bunch of long, drawn out scenes that will put most to sleep. If you can handle all that, you might like it. I know they were trying to be shocking or whatever. but it was just contrived and boring. Just an opinion. I wouldn't pay $20 for it.

Rating:
Summary: Irresponsible
Review: I'm a veteran of shocking and disturbing cinema, and even I was a little nervous putting this disc into the machine. The things I'd read about this movie told me to expect a grueling experience -- heck, the dramatic opening credits nearly had me too intimidated to continue watching. But ultimately the story itself was too simplistic to be genuinely disturbing, and I was left wondering what the aims were of the film's creator, Gaspar Noe. This was the second Noe film I'd seen (I Stand Alone was the first) and I now suspect his ambition as a filmmaker is merely to become a notorious director of shocking material. My guess is that his creative technique consists solely of conjuring up a suckerpunch scene (in the case of Irreversible, there are two) and then throwing together sufficient character and plot to make the scene plausible. It's telling to me that the camera swirls and twists -- almost nauseatingly so -- throughout the whole of Irreversible, but only remains static in one scene (the excruciatingly long rape sequence), as though to suggest that this was the only scene that mattered, the only one worth framing properly. Noe is merely an exploitation filmmaker, but in a world where no one pays attention to shock filmmakers anymore (after all, Perry Farrell said that nothing was shocking fifteen years ago), Noe is forced to paint his material as moralistic just to get people to look at his work. But there is no substance here. Rape is nonsensical. Revenge is nonsensical. The world is cruel. These are obvious, barnyard-door-sized morals. All Noe is doing is forcing us to look at unpalatable material in the hope that we'll remember his name. I'm reminded of what one critic said about Marilyn Manson: "There's nothing as lame or pitiful as contrived outrage, and no band around fails to shock with as much concerted effort as Marilyn Manson." Same goes for Gaspar Noe. If you want to see something really shocking, try Takashi Miike's Audition. Now there's a suckerpunch.

Rating:
Summary: Very good, but hard to watch.
Review: Brutal.

Irreversible is similar to Momento in that the story is told in reverse. We see the final scene, then we go back to the scene before the final scene, and so on. Considering the subject matter of the movie is an extremely violent murder and a disgusting rape, the telling in reverse is a good thing since we don't leave the movie with the graphic images fresh on our minds.

But the memories will remain.

What's really brutal about this movie isn't the murder or rape, it's the filmmaking! In order to get across the "out of control" feeling the characters have to the audience, the director filmed the first (or would that be the last?) 30 minutes of the movie without the aid of a tripod. It's actually much worse than that as the camera man actually spins the camera around... side spinning, front spinning... there's a lot of spinning. If you're prone to motion sickness keep the pause button handy!

If you can survive the first 30 minutes the movie is worth watching. The story is interesting and thought provoking. I don't suggest watching this one with any females present though as the rape scene is quite, well, brutal.

Rating:
Summary: Gut wrenching AND breathtaking¿.
Review: This is a sick, sick, sick puppy of a movie, but yet brilliant and, dare I say it, beautiful. Mr. Noe's shock-and-gore fest is actually a well-directed and excellently acted gem that too many people dismiss just because of its graphic nature. Granted, the rape scene is very hard to watch - your heart aches for her, and the fire extinguisher skull-smashing sequence is gut wrenching. However, there is method to the madness. Violence and revenge aint pretty. Finally, here is a movie that dares to take issue to the romanticized violence Hollywood tries to jam down our throats. Irreversible will show it for what it really is.
The reverse sequencing of the movie is just brilliant and much more clever than Momento. He gives us the violence and gore up front, and then showing the sequence of events that lead up to it, rather than following the tried formula of using the violent end as the crescendo of the movie. The reverse order works well in conveying his message: that time changes everything. Once the animal instinct in us takes over, our entire existence can forever be altered without the opportunity of going back. Irreversible if you will.

Rating:
Summary: Gratuitous violence is no substitute for film-making
Review: Here is France's artistic gift to the world. This movie has all the finish and professionalism of a home-movie made the day you bought your first video camera.

Noe attempts the intriguing wit of Momento by running the plot backwards. But this device cannot hide the lack of meaningful diaglog or character development.

There is no Tarrantino-like or Polanski-like edge to the violence. After the sixth minute of watching the infamous [part], you wonder more about the psyche of the director who seems to hide something worse than a kinky streak behind a pretence of great art.

There is little to recommend this little shocker.

Rating:
Summary: Time destroys everything... but not this film! Masterful!!!
Review: Before I begin... Has anyone else noticed that you cannot access the 'Making of Special Effects' feature that is prominently advertised on the US Region 1 DVD?

Rape happens. It happens to someone, somewhere in the world, every minute of every day. To avert your eyes is to deny that it exists in your world. To turn away is to shirk responsibility. This film is truthful in it's depiction of that horror and the feelings of vengeance that inevitably follow. There will be those that are repulsed by this film, a film that can make 'Requiem for a Dream' seem like a little girl's fairytale. If you are one of those who refuse to watch 'Irreversible' or one who watches and is offended... then you are living in a fake fairytale world of your own. This great French film is as brutally truthful and poignant as any in recent memory. It is one of the saddest films I have ever seen. And yet, because of it's reverse chronology, the final scenes of blissful romanticism are some of the most beautiful and heartbreaking moments ever committed to the silver screen. This is a courageous and magnificent artistic achievement!

'Irreversible' unfolds backwards, much like 2001's 'Memento'. It's not a gimmick... far from it. The film begins with the revenge beating of a suspected rapist. It is a savage and relentless scene that will make many squirm. It is as graphic and violent a scene as could be imagined, and at the end, you will feel like you were the one who had their skull crushed in. And because we have no real idea who these characters are, there is a sense that this is gratuitous and pointless violence. Then we go back in time just a few minutes to the search for the rapist and watch as the frenzy of revenge consumes a man who is bent on justice for the rape of his girlfriend. The next scene is the rape itself. It is a soul-crushing scene of relentless intensity that seems to drag on forever. It makes the earlier beating scene seem rather tame and almost justified. And the film continues to track time in reverse to the beginning of a seemingly innocuous day filled with hope and love and tenderness. But of course, unlike the characters, we are painfully aware of what awaits them as the day unfolds. It is tear-inducingly sad to watch these people drift toward an irreversible destiny.

Monica Bellucci is astonishingly brave. This performance is as courageous and accomplished as Diane Lane's role in last year's thriller 'Unfaithful'. She should be decorated with every award there is for her role as Alex. She is terrifyingly scared and desperately sympathetic in the rape scene... but her best work comes later in the film (earlier in the day) as she shares some tender moments with her lover (Cassel) and some funny moments with an ex-boyfriend. The final twenty minutes of the movie are all a showcase for her... a chance for her to show that she is capable of magnificent subtlety and tremendous range. The bedroom scene with Bellucci and her real life husband, Vincent Cassel, is as realistic and honest as you will ever see. There is no need for added sentiment or melodrama... only truth. Their interaction is spectacular in these moments.

'Irreversible' is a film about many things: The Relentlessness of Time; The Cruelty of Karma; The Inevitability of Destiny; The Natural Tendency of Revenge; The Randomness of Luck; The Sadness of Truth. I could go on and on. This film doesn't give us convention. It says that sometimes bad things happen to good people. It shows that fortune sometimes smiles on evil (Try to remember every face you see!). The movie doesn't perpetuate our need for fakery and fairytales. Bad things happen... but time will destroy that too.

As the film tells us over and over... "Time destroys everything."

Director Gaspar Noé and his cast have created a great film... one that should be seen by everyone, especially those that don't want to! This film has the ability to change you... and how many times can you say that about your typical fluffy Hollywood fairytale? This is a masterpiece!

I am sure that this film has reserved a place in my Top Ten list for 2003.

Rating:
Summary: The Most Disturbing Film I've Ever Seen
Review: My passion in life is movies, I'll watch anything. I've gotten myself to adjust to all types of film, hardly ever am I bothered by what I'm seeing on the screen. This however wasn't the case in Irreversible. I've never felt so sick and nauceous and shaken up from a film. By the end I was on the verge of crying from all the evil acts that just unfolded in front of me, so naturally, I watched the film again. For a film to be capable of bringing all that emotion out of me, for me, that's a masterpiece. However, I don't recommend this to a majority of the people out there, I'd be surprised if most could make it through the first 20 minutes, but if you think you can handle a film that consists of an extremely brutal raping and a death that will be in your head for years to come, go ahead, watch it, but if you prefer to keep these images out of your head, don't. I'll be shaken up for a while, sleeping isn't going to be easy.

Rating:
Summary: Harrowing but Excellent
Review: The film reprises Christopher Nolan's trick in "Memento" of presenting the events of its plot in strict reverse chronological order. Nolan used the character's amnesia to reconcile this with real suspense: paradoxically we keep watching to find out what happens in the beginning. There isn't much suspense in this but the reversal here serves a rather different purpose. In almost any good movie, the things that happen at the beginning take on a quite different emotional significance in the light of what happens at the end but the audience only figures this out retrospectively in memory or on repeated viewing. Here, because of the time reversal, this effect is right in your face and becomes the central focus of the movie. All this only comes together in the second half of the, after the appalling violence of the first 45 minutes. If you can steel yourself to sit through this, you will end up feeling richly rewarded by an extraordinary film.

Showing violence, and in particular sexual violence, with such unflinching brutality as here is only readily justified if you have something worthwhile to say, in paticular and most obviously something to say about violence itself. "Irreversible" passes the test impressively: it is one of the most interesting and thoughtful movies about violence I know. It is rather like some of Wilfred Owen's best war poetry in forcing us to look intensely not merely at the intrinsic character of violent acts themselves but also at the space of human promise and possibility they tear to shreds.

It's also a film about sex but here I am less sure it works so well. The dynamics emotional triangle between the three central characters, Alex, Marcus, her boyfriend, and Pierre, her ex, is not altogether convincing and a long (rather too long) conversation between them about sex in a subway train is the film's least successful scene. But that is a quibble about a fine film.

The direction and cinematography is informed by an extremely self-conscious visual style, using, in a way reminiscent of Hitchcock's "Rope", only a very small number of extremely long takes interrupted by camera sweeps across monochromatic surfaces to create a sense of an even greater seamlessness. The use of camera movement is also remarkable. But all this enhances rather than obscuring the film's deeper agenda. A decade or so ago, in the heyday of folk like Luc Besson, I got a bit depressed by a worry that French cinema was being woefully afflicted by a triumph of style over substance, all visual flair but nothing to say. With this movie the stylistic mastery is still there but that particular cause for depression gets no purchase.

Rating:
Summary: Irreversible is a original movie
Review: I have never seen anything like it. The violence is a little over done and the rape scene could have been cut down a little, but it is what it is, and it is a very original movie. Nothing like momento!