Mark Bold

In the later scenes of Irreversible, we are perhaps being asked by the filmmakers (dir. Gaspar Noé) to identify the decision without which none of the prior consequences would have occurred. The story is told in ‘real time’, yet this time is reversed so that effect precedes cause and hence each decision and action can be seen in the context of its repercussions. That the ultimate action in the film is an extremely brutal and explicit murder, revenge for a similarly barbaric rape, means that the shocking nature of these scenes remains with us as we trace events back to the beginning of the evening.

The opening scene of the film, where its resolution is played out, is an immediate descent into hell. Pierre (Albert Dupontel) and Marcus (Vincent Cassell) enter an underground fetish club, and we are presented with hellish scenes reminiscent of the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. All manner of animal lusts are being indulged, and although we only glimpse activity as the camera whirls around creating the confusion of drink or drugs or extreme emotion, these are enough, in conjunction with the groans and wails and an overpowering soundtrack, to present a terrible hell. The intensity of the scene grows as the characters claw their way deeper underground until we witness a savage and sickening murder.

The explicit violence of the beating to death that begins the action in the movie occupies the screen for far longer than audiences would perhaps expect. The camera does not turn away, nor is it a quick and painless death that might exist in Hollywood or a facile police procedural. We watch an extremely disturbing act of bestial ferocity, or turn away, or leave the cinema - as some do. The scene is shown in such an explicit manner so it sticks in our memories and imaginations as we witness the events that led to it, and hence, desensitized as we are by the merry dispatching of our usual baddies, it needs to be this horrifying and this unforgettable.

In this first scene, we are also introduced to the film’s major theme, that of aspects of masculinity which are supposedly submerged by civilisation. RECTUM, the venue where the murder takes place, is a place where gay men act out all kinds of sexual activities. It is perhaps symbolic that the building is below ground, and as Pierre and Marcus travel downward in search of the rapist, the disturbing nature of the activities, and their frantic, desperate consummation, increases. And then we witness the murder, and the bestial nature of man is explicitly on the screen; morality and civilisation (and women) are absent. We watch what we know men are capable of, however much we believe they act and think in a rational manner.

As the film progresses, we find out two more things which elaborate the unsettling act we have witnessed, and perhaps further dishearten us. The first is that the man who enacts the savage murder is actually a philosopher. He is a man who in later scenes will reveal that he is perhaps trapped by the logical side of himself. It appears that he is unable to form proper relations with others, especially women, because of his constant analysing and abstraction. He lives in a world where aesthetics and explanation seem more important than interaction and living. Alex (Monica Belluci), a friend of his and the victim of the rape, indeed repeatedly asserts that ’some things cannot be explained’, but he remains adamant in his rationalising. As we see this side of him, especially in the way he criticises Marcus’ treatment of Alex, we cannot help recall despairingly of what he is eventually capable.

The other addition to our memories of the violent murder is that perhaps it is not even the intended victim. At the end of the ferocious murder, the camera turns to a man watching and laughing, and it is perhaps his disfigured nose we recall later in the rape scene. We can maybe interpret this as a comment by the filmmakers about the futility of revenge, a subject that is perhaps the most masculine of all plot archetypes. It is a masculine world we are drawn through by this plot, one that focusses on the exploitation of and cruelty to women. Pimping, prostitution and the rape itself are presented in vivid detail as Pierre and Marcus follow the masculine impulse towards revenge. This is made explicit by two characters who appear in a slightly contrived manner, as Pierre and Marcus stand dazed by the ambulance taking Alex away. They explain the ‘logic’ behind revenge, that spilt blood calls for spilt blood. This is the style of justice that satisfies the primitive side of man, perhaps, although as they enter the fetish club, the philosopher Pierre explains that ‘even animals don’t try for revenge’. As we have seen, his philosophy soon becomes redundant.

These aspects of masculinity are further illuminated by the filmmakers in other contexts, especially as the film’s time line draws us back to the rape itself, which is perhaps the most disturbing part of the movie. As with the brutality of the murder, the camera does not shy away, there are no effects or editing to shield us from the abhorrent nature of the scene; we must again witness the full horror perpetrated, another vivid set of images the filmmakers wish us to take with us through the remainder of the movie. The graphic nature of the scene has obviously drawn outrage and criticism. Watching it, we cannot help but wonder at our own reactions, all of which seem irrelevant or inappropriate, and how many more times worse must be the actual experience of a rape victim. As we watch, we are cast in the role of voyeur by the filmmakers, on a par with the character who enters the subway where the crime is being committed, but does nothing and simply exits. Sometimes, as the long, single-take scene progresses, we might rationalise to ourselves that we are watching fiction, and it is this blamelessness in our voyeurism that the filmmakers are using to undermine our cherished rational interpretations of the film. The intention of the filmmakers seems to be to present experience, as raw as possible, rather than argument or dramatic conflict. The lens remains unflinchingly amoral in all that it shows us, and in witnessing such horror, we cannot help but react to the remaining sequences in the movie with a heightened sensitivity to the position of women in this brutish masculine world.

Scenes showing the three friends (Alex, Marcus and Pierre) travelling to and attending a party are saturated with moments which flag this perilous position of women. Marcus insists on finding a ‘mate’ for his philosopher friend Pierre, who as we have seen is somehow detached from the world. The women at the party are to a large extent thought of by Marcus as a pool of beings without individuality from which this mate can be selected. They are presented simply as things for pleasure, and Marcus indulges himself in these diversions. Even more clearly, Marcus’ treatment of his girlfriend Alex at the party shows up the power disbalance in the couple. He gives her little respect, expects her to tolerate his childish whim, and is not at all bothered when, fatefully, she leaves the party early, and without him. His behaviour is also commented on by Pierre, who compares him to a primate and wonders if he too should adopt a ‘banana diet’ to become as animal in his actions as Marcus. His constant questioning brings out from Alex thoughts on sex that at once highlight the fundamentally selfish nature of the sexual impulse, indeed that there is no pleasure to be gained from a man that is not thinking only of himself, and of course reverberates with the brutality of the rape we have witnessed.

But nowhere else in the movie are these reverberations more apparent than in the scenes of tender intimacy with which the actual story begins. Alex and Marcus lie naked in bed, and she begins to tell him a dream she has just woken from. His face creases; perhaps he does not wish to become so intimate. They playfully share their nakedness, but with the haunting images in our minds, we cannot help but detect the forceful manner of the man in the couple, his sometimes almost violent requests and actions that are not thought unusual at all. Marcus is trying to see how much he can get away with, and in their intimacy, such gentle violence is perhaps guiltless. But, aware as we are of the later events in their evening, even these nuances of violence and aggression catch our attention. It seems perhaps that there can be no sexuality without an element of violence.

Alex’s discovery that she is pregnant allows the filmmakers to add poignancy to the closing section of the film, and also allow the detachment of the viewer from the horror of the events witnessed. There is talk in the film that the future is foreplanned, the actual presentation of the story has been in reverse, and the title itself hints at the one way nature of time. This analysis of the flow of time is used at the end of the film to present us with a different view of events. As we watch Alex’s pregnancy progress in colourful outdoor photography that is at odds with the mood of the rest of the film, we suspect that maybe the terrible events we have witnessed were in her dream and time is continuing with a favourable outcome to the story. The movie closes with a white strobing screen, similar to the opening of Bergman’s Persona, reassuring us that we have been watching film pass through a projector. The raw experience is now over.