Le Temps Detruit Tout- Time Destroys Everything.
(major spoilers for irreversible ahead so if you're a nonspoiler purist-like me-you have been warned.)

a piece of art immitating life does just that and consequently, stories deal with not only happy moments that depict the beauty of humanity but those to do with the ugliness of the human race as well. of course everyone knows that already but sometimes i forget how much that one simple notion can affect me intensely. and when it does, i realise how many conventional films, that either deal with the usual subject matter or are made with conventional techniques, have ceased to move me. we're lulled to an almost unconscious state of consumption and it is the occassional audacious film that stirs us from this slumber. the last good film i caught that dealt with something truly ugly and brutal was michael haneke's adaptation of la pianiste (the piano teacher). i reviewed it, it's somewhere in my archives (which doesn't work).

born and raised a film buff, i've been pretty much exposed to a lot of violent imagery in film. since i was a kid, i've seen people being hacked into pieces in zombie movies, scary realistic werewolf transformations, blood baths, awful deaths in wars but nothing... nothing gets to me more than a craftily simulated rape scene. when i was 7, i was passing by my dad in the living room while he was watching a movie and i happened to chance at the part when a man cornered a woman for information and proceeded to rape her. this was obviously years ago and yet till today, i still remember the raw fear in the woman's voice as she spoke and sobbed during the ordeal, her awful screaming. alarmed, i demanded what was going on. my dad has always been honest with me and never minced his words... he told me that a bad man was forcing the woman to do something she really didn't want to do. somehow i put 2 and 2 together and figured to some effect what was going on. i was petrified. my mum shooed me to my bedroom because it was past my bedtime. as i walked up toward my room, i stopped in my tracks and right then and there, i started screaming and wailing on the stairs. my mum never did figure out what brought on my hysteria. she didn't guess that i would've understood what was going on in the scene of that movie cuz i watched it for even less than a minute.

speed up to when i was 17. i was watching boys don't cry on an uncensored vcd with 2 of my pals from junior college. and again, the part when teena brandon was raped by 2 vengeful men who're angered to find out that she was a dyke disguising as a man brought back the grief and i bawled uncontrollably. like i said, nothing gets to me more than a rape scene... it frightens me, angers me and saddens me all at once and i guess that's overwhelming. it's not just about taking a victim sexually against her or his will (which is bad enough) but rather the sheer ugly cruelty involved- the monstrosity a person is capable of is brought to the fore.

the 5-7 minute rape sequence in irreversible is, by far, the most explicitly graphic portrayal i've ever witnessed. it was petrifying, painful and horrible to watch. do not scorn the warning that was put up with the poster. i dare anyone to leave this film totally unscathed and unaffected...and if you do, i'm sorry to tell you that a part of you must have died a long time ago. there during the sequence, as i lay crumbled in my seat, i reverted back to that 17 year old youth who sobbed into her pillow and then further still to that little girl who wailed on the staircase.

i didn't lose myself to hysterics of course but i was driven to tears. irreversible borrowed the revolutionary technique of chronologically backward narrative from christopher nolan's excellent film, memento. but unlike the film noir, irreversible is more of a character driven piece rather than a convoluted, mystery plot with staggering revelations at its climatic peak. so don't expect to get what you received when you watched memento, i did so i felt a little shortchanged at the end. but upon contemplating it further, i came to a conclusion about just how brave and audacious this film is. it is honest and straightforward in its depiction of violence, not just during the rape scene but also when pierre (bestfriend of alex, the rape victim) bashed up a man whom marcus (alex's boyfriend who's out for vengeance) suspected was the perpetraitor. it was excrutiating, nothing was left of the man's face after he was done.

a word of warning, the camera propels 360 degrees. it literally places the audience in the position of an unobserved 3rd person... like a fly on the walls, hovering above and off to the side of the commotion. and when the adrenaline of the characters start to pump in their distress, the camera pans even faster and when it settles on one plane, it runs and stumbles after the characters... it makes nypd blue look like a calm day on the ocean. it is to an extent, overtly done and in my frustration to understand what i'm seeing and what's going on, i even felt that it was all quite unnecessary. i actually suffered some motion sickness and almost ran to the toilet to throw up. but i do understand what the director, gaspar noe, is trying to get at- the sense of disorientation, the chaotic mental and emotional breakdown in moments of crisis. i felt ill literally and even though i suffered, it really did help me understand and get into the psyche of the characters and start to understand the kind of pain they're in.

monica belluci did a great job. i can't understand how she could do that scene and emerge with her sanity in tact. twirling sequences and the loud, intense, breaking of the film at the end (which was supposed to be the beginning) suggest the destructive forces which was focused upon in the context of the story itself and is self-reflexive, referring to the reversed film technique and how that breaks conventional flimic representation and in a way, letting us know how it has broken our complascent slumber. it's an attack on the senses which is reminiscent of the rape... and i left the theatre almost as horrified as if i had somehow been violated.
get the trailer here.
visit the official site here.