‘Irreversible’ (2002) Movie Review

Irreversible is a film written and directed by Gaspar Noé starring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel.

Controversial and brutal, provocation for provocation’s sake? That’s precisely the point of it.

Plot

A rape, a revenge, and a story in which we discover… its origin.

Movie Review

Controversial and provocative. In case you don’t know, the sequences are structured in reverse order and the treatment, too. It goes from more to less (evidently) and it is an exercise in stilted, twisted and even forced style. It offers great performances (especially by Vincent Cassel).

You can love it or (it’s going to happen) you can consider it as trash that makes provocation for the sake of provocation its flag (which may be true). Also, you can consider it pure auteur cinema in which its director does a tour de force. In any case, it is a different kind of film, one of those that “you have to watch” in order to destroy it or love it, perhaps there is no middle ground.

It has the peculiarity of uniqueness. It is not that a film that goes backwards is original (it has been done a few times, but some, also in literature), it is not that the violence has “never seen before” (and it is very violent), it is rather that in its conjunction, the whole, structured or not, repulsive or not, it is coherent and provocative, which is precisely what its creator intends.

You decide.

Our Opinion

A more than interesting and must-see film. Warning: it may turn out to be one of those exercises that goes nowhere, violent baroque aestheticism… despicable or not, one of the films that has given the most to talk about for its obvious narrative and formal excesses.

Trailer