Irréversible

IMDB

We watched two French movies tonight. One famous, one infamous.

Irréversible has been written about so much I'm not sure that I can add to the dialogue. I will say that for those who argue that the theater is the only appropriate way to see a movie, I'm actually glad we didn't see it in the theater. Yes, the experience was less intense on a small screen, but frankly it was plenty intense for me. While the bowel-shattering 28Hz frequency was minimized by the size of my speakers, and lack of sub-woofer, the audio and graphical content were plenty disturbing enough.

But Irréversible is one of those films that people love to argue about as a litmus test of moral standards, the typical responses being: 1) I am moral, and this was gratuitous and therefore repulsed me, see how moral I am by rejecting it's shock value? 2) I am moral, and this film shocked me because of the un-glamorized sex and violence, see how moral I am by empathizing with such an awful situation? 3) I am immoral, and the film excited me. See how tough I am?

Christine brought up G.G. Allin, who was an infamous underground punk rock singer. Most punk rock fans (this one included) were middle-class rebellious teenagers, who really were disaffected and had no place to vent their rightful or self-indulgent anger. Punk Rock made rebellion its clarion call, and a subset of rebellion is bad behavior. Rejecting society's dress code, punks would be anti-fashion as a walking billboard mockery of the normal people. Rejecting the fallacies and theater of rock n' roll, punks would play music that was tougher, meaner, faster, harder and louder than those posers on the arena stages. They didn't need to be famous, they didn't need approval.

Problem being that like gansta rap, most punks really were visiting the zoo of caged rebellion. They were having a bit of fun and expressing themselves, rather than being real outlaws. That's a problem when you have to lay out your bona fides at the pissing gallery. In walked a few people who really were outlaws. Who really were criminals and could prove it by their jail records and track marks. It's one thing to tell your parents to fuck off, that you'd rather live in the gutter, it's another thing to really live in the gutter. Allin lived in the gutter.

Nobody could top him. He would break glass on stage and roll around in it, hitting himself with bottles. He would sodomize himself with his microphone. He would defecate on stage and throw it into the audience, or eat it. Audience members would fellate him. For years I heard about this character, how outrageous he was. Dude! You have to go see this guy, they'd say. He's fucking outrageous. I never did. I couldn't bring myself to listen to his albums (which were heavily secondary, sophomoric songs about murder, rape and butt-licking), which squarely puts myself in category one above. The people that were in category three, I felt, were buying the fiction of punk rock, not realizing that it was about as real as the Jack Daniels bottles that Van Halen used to have on stage (filled with tea). It was usually the people that told me how outrageous Allin was that told me how amazing heroin is. That's a contest where the end game is something I'd rather avoid.

So, Irréversible. I think that most viewers of this film end up in category one or two above. I'm in category two for this film. I would guess the majority end up in two. They are repulsed by the violence. But to what end? What did we learn from this film? Fire extinguishers extinguish more than fires? Pimps raping beautiful women are bad? Rape is horrible? Certainly the film is a masterpiece of visceral filmmaking. The first half is so nauseating, so overwhelming and bone-chillingly tense and frightening that it could only come about through design and craft. Some art is nauseating and worth it, even if you don't understand fully the message. I see Irréversible as more of a poem than a statement, albeit a dark, disturbing and not very hopeful poem.

One final thing: Vincent Cassel was very good, but that didn't surprise me. Monica Bellucci floored me, though. Having my first exposure to her be (as many people) the Matrix films, where she was fine but so formalized that you couldn't really feel her, here she was raw and unadorned. She was completely naturalistic and heartbreaking, and in the ending scenes after stepping out of her shower, so rawly emotive that it was implicitly clear what she was feeling though there was no dialogue and minimal action. Of course, it's an awful thing to proclaim "Oh look, the pretty girl can act too!", but after years of training at the hands of Hollywood sleight-of-hand artists who cleverly edit the American and English beauties so that it looks like they can act, its refreshing to see that arguably the most beautiful woman in the world has the chops to be a first rate, deeply affecting actress. I hope that she becomes famous beyond measure, and picks good roles. I would watch her act in anything now. Next stop: The Passion of the Christ.