Irreversible

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.