Irreversible

3/22/20031h 33m

Premiere Release (US)

~ Time destroys everything. ~

Overview:

A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished.

Director:

Gaspar Noé

Status:

Released

Language:

French

Buget:

$3,500,000.00

Revenue:

$6,500,000.00

Key words:

prostitute
rape
paris, france
police
nihilism
homophobia
homicide
insanity
heroin
celibacy
trauma
assault
masochism
gore
knife
violence against women
love
revenge
fear
cruelty
brutality
drugs
evil
boyfriend
lgbt
misogyny
debauchery
degeneration
disfigurement
rape and revenge
dehumanization
new french extremism
altruism
depressing
defiant

Cast

Monica Bellucci

~ as ~

Alex

Vincent Cassel

~ as ~

Marcus

Albert Dupontel

~ as ~

Pierre

Jo Prestia

~ as ~

The Tapeworm

Philippe Nahon

~ as ~

Man

Stéphane Drouot

~ as ~

Stéphane

Jean-Louis Costes

~ as ~

Fistman

Mick Gondouin

~ as ~

Mick

Mourad Khima

~ as ~

Mourad

Layde Hellal

~ as ~

Layde

View full cast & crew

Reviews (3)

S
Segfault
Written 1 year(s) ago
~~
Deceived by 7+ rating I started watching. After 15 minutes I still forced myself to keep watching. After 30 minutes I had seen nothing worth to see, wasted half an hour of my life. What a dull obnoxious movie. Even the camera work is irritating.
a
akarta
Written 7 month(s) ago
10
Firstly this is one of the best films of 2000-10 period, the film is in reverse order concerning its story, so the opening really is the ending of the film, and the ending is actually the start of the film, so please be aware when watching this film its in reverse order story wise and, its camera work is certainly one of the best ever produced, the sound work mirrors the camera work, and is very hypnotic, and is meant to create a state of nausea and anxiety, it is very gritty gay scene in france and its hyper realistic violence and rape scenes within this film, which very few people will enjoy actually watching it, because of that or the reverse order of the story, if your going to watch it only watch the first version of it. do not watch the Straight Cut version of the film that was made afterwards, because it tries to place things in the correct chronological order for the small brained people out there, which also simply removes the deeper level of the film, and once again it is not a film for everyone, why very few people will actually understand it or enjoy it, or even the deeper level its trying to show, concerning life. life is time and time destroys everything (Le temps détruit tout). And for fans of I Stand Alone, Butcher makes an appearance in the start, i would also recommended watching Enter the Void (2010) also excellent.
CinemaSerf
Written 1 week(s) ago
7
Now depending on when you watched this film, you might notice that the original version and the more recent one are structured in an almost clockwise and anti-clockwise manner. In this version we work our way backwards from the frenetic activities of “Marcus” (Vincent Cassel) and his friend “Pierre” (Albert Dupontel) as they race round Paris in the early morning vengefully trying to track down a brute who gruesomely attacked his girlfriend “Alex” (Monica Bellucci) in a city underpass as she walked home. Auteur Gaspar Noé spares us little, visually or audibly, as the two men react with violent anger uncontrollably attempting to trace the culprit; nor is much left to our imagination during the assault itself which in many ways almost mitigates the behaviour of “Marcus” as his boundaries completely evaporate into a sea of fury. It’s a tale of revenge, but also of the futility of that revenge. Nothing can undo what has been done, even if the men they hire to help them identify this assailant deliver, this pair are going to have to live with this as best (or worst) they can. Cassel offers us something visceral with his performance here and that is well tempered by a Dupontel whose character (himself an ex-boyfriend of “Alex”) tries to curtail the worst excesses of his friend’s off-the-rails behaviour whilst coming to terms with his own grief. Creepily worthy of note, too, is the effort from the character committing not just one, but a whole series of heinous and demeaning offences on this defenceless woman and though this is most definitely not an easy film to watch, it’s a strangely compelling one that does invite us to consider just how approaches to vigilanteism might alter if this happened to someone we loved.