An 'Irreversible' art

When the fire-extinguisher first hits the man's face, he moans in pain, and we notice a tooth is missing. There is the hollow clunk of metal colliding with bone; a clumsy and empty sound that does not excite, but that is simple and dull and can be nothing else. Somewhere around the fifth blow, the man's jaw shatters and loosely hangs open by the supporting flesh of his face, his lips have become busted and bleeding worms, his mouth a gaping chasm of broken teeth and splitting gums. It is around the fifteenth bash that the man's head begins to break open, no longer a face, but flesh slipping off bone and gore, and the sound is of a blunt object repeatedly striking mud. A matter of moments following this scene of carnage, we will bear witness to a rape sequence that lasts nearly ten minutes, in which a beautiful woman is brutally sodomized, the attacker's hand clamped over her mouth, the cords of her neck bulging as she tries to scream. After she is raped, after she has vomited, she will be beaten into a coma that will likely take her life and the life of the child that is inside of her. The wet packing sounds of rape and violence are horrifying and undistinguishable.\nAnd this is within the first thirty minutes of the film.\nThe reason I have been so descriptive with the above scenes, which sickeningly pale next to the actual images, is because the subject matter I wish to discuss must be absolutely understood for what it is. The scenes are from a film that recently played in Bloomington and will likely, and yes, hopefully, play again by being picked up by the Ryder film series. The film is Gaspar Noé's "Irreversible," which premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. As could be expected, and as many a critic has commented upon, the film has been torridly controversial and lead to many a mass walking out by a shocked and terrified audience. Regardless of your personal stance on Noé's film, "Irreversible" is undeniably offensive to the point of nausea. And that is precisely why the film is utterly important, especially to any who are interested in delving into the world of celluloid.\nWith a groundbreaking force that has nearly gone unnoticed, Noé has accomplished the "impossible." In a world where war is broadcast into every home like the latest TV movie, where sex and violence are an inconsequential video game played by toddlers, where desensitization is decried as a disease that plagues us all, Noé's uncompromising vision has shaken us to the core. "Irreversible" forces us to confront the naïveté of such a term as "desensitization." What is offensive is that we could ever consider violence, whether physical, sexual or of any sort, as unaffecting. Noé has torn the celluloid curtain off these acts and reveals them unflinchingly. He refuses us the comfort of cutting away when we see the demon for what it really is, and ensures us that our "desensitization" will be the traumatized trickle dripping from our calloused collective chins.\nThe key word in that paragraph was "uncompromising." The last film I saw that was as brutally honest as "Irreversible," that truly earned the title "uncompromising," was Darren Aronofsky's masterful "Requiem for a Dream." Both of these visionaries have dared to portray the darkest and most heartbreaking sides of humanity in the rawest way possible, obliterating excess and going directly for the nerve endings. Their films, especially in Noé's case, absolutely refuse to be labeled as "fiction," and to call them as such is not only demeaning, but a sheer travesty. Most importantly, and especially to anyone considering film as a career, these men have committed to a level of integrity in portraying their stories and characters that few have the courage to follow today.\n"Irreversible" is the story of rape and revenge, to state it simply. Using a narrative structure that progresses backward creating a dramatic weltering that makes Christopher Nolan's "Memento" seem trivially complicated, Noé completely displaces the audience. Opening with the revenge, moving through the rape and ending with our couple basking in one another's loving arms. Noé condemns us to a foresight his characters are never given -- the stain of their future repulsively bleeding into every innocent moment before their world is destroyed. \n Furthermore, Noé completely warps any traditional attachment of emotion to such elements as a cathartic climax by immediately opening on it before we have any context to place it in. Specifically concerning the concept of revenge, what Noé has done is brilliant, completely draining it of any redeeming quality. Leaving us feeling confused, appalled and then sickened when we learn that it has been enacted on the wrong person (and that isn't a spoiler; you also learn this within the first thirty minutes of the film). If Noé had chosen to film "Irreversible" under the typical conventions of linear storytelling, it would have become little more than a satisfaction-oriented revenge flick. By inverting the conventions of linear storytelling, he has created a piece that is a commentary on humanity and the irreversible moments of our life.\nNoé's film, much like others such as Aronofsky's "Requiem," Larry Clark's "Kids" or Harmony Korine's "Gummo," is film in its most artistic moment. These are films that challenge us, that refuse to let us remain passive and that become confrontational to the way in which we view the world. These are films that display the raw power and unlimited potential of the celluloid world. These are films that are not meant to entertain you, that were not made to break a box-office record, but that are intended to open our minds, our hearts and our eyes. And in the end, these will be the films that will have the power to touch the unseen generations to come in a way that only the purest art can.