Whether you think that Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible is brilliant, or one of the most deplorably violent films you ever had the dis-pleasure to see, one thing is certain: it images etch themselves deeply into the surface of the retina ... they grab on, as it where, and don’t let go. Two scenes in particular shout for attention ... one where a man’s head is repeatedly smashed with the butt of a fire hydrant ... another, a slow extended moment in which a gay pimp anally rapes Alex (Monica Bellucci) in a garish red underpass, gives her a couple of kicks in the head, and then pounds her face into the concrete pavement until she is comatose. Perceptive readers may have already discerned that this film isn’t for everyone ... in fact, it’s probably only a film for the few. Clearly, repulsion to graphic violence is highly personal, but it often conceals a more conventional, even conservative position, which generally tries to beat up the merits of suggestion over graphic description. This insistence that suggested violence is expressively superior to shown violence, however, does not rise solely from an interest in maximizing expression. It has an often concealed moral agenda. But it is this moral agenda that audiences should question: is it really morally better to keep graphic violence out of our films? Is it really more civil, more civilized? Is it not part of society’s desire to conceal its seamier side, to sweep it nicely out of sight? In Irréversible, Gaspar Noé chooses to use graphic violence because he wants to focus on the victim as much as the attacker. He wants us to see in detail the repercussive effects of brutality. Via the retina he wants us to feel how a single outburst of violent behaviour can destroy a person’s life beyond repair.

With all the controversy about graphic violence in films, it is important not to ignore the fact that it is not the graphic nature of Irréversible’s rape scene that gives it impact. It’s the length of the scene. I’m not in the habit of carrying a stopwatch into press screenings, but the rape must have gone on for 8 or 9 minutes. It felt like forever. And 8 or 9 minutes must be getting pretty close to reality -- I note this here because the very people who praise reality in film are the same ones who seem to wish for less reality when it comes to violence or sex. And Noé’s camera records everything. The pimp forces Alex to the ground ... the camera moves down with them, and stays at ground level ... watching as the pimp slowly rips away Alex’s clothes, covers her mouth, rips off her underpants, forces himself in. A man walks into the underpass at its far end ... pauses ... then quietly leaves. Noé is telling us that if we don’t want to watch we don’t have to, but he is not going to be the one to give us the reprieve.

Noé’s central exploration of how a single random act of brutality can destroy a person’s life forever is conveyed through Irréversible’s narrative structure. Alex and her boyfriend Marcus (Bellucci’s real life husband, Vincent Cassel), go out for a night of hard-partying and hard-clubbing. When Alex leaves the club early after a fight with Marcus, she unwisely takes an underpass as a shortcut, and it is here she meets her rapist. Marcus seeks revenge for her rape, frantically searching for her attacker through the filthy backstreets of Paris, a search which leads him to a gay club called the Rectum, and that incident with the fire extinguisher. Noé tells his tale backwards. First we see Marcus being arrested ... we move to his attacking of the man he believes to be the rapist ... we move back to his search for the rapist, etc. And as we move backwards, we watch the events knowing full well what is about to happen, and our sense of how much the characters are about to loose is sharpened.

Noé has composed Irréversible in a series of long extended shots. Yet the film contains hundreds of separate shots that were digitally melded during post-production. As the narrative moves backwards the camera steadies itself, and becomes more composed, more calm. When Marcus is running through the Rectum looking for Alex’s attacker, being accosted at every turn by men wanting blow-jobs, the camera is rough, fast, and frantic, and often we see no more than a blur, as if the camera is being swung on a bungee cord ... it flashes and twists in all directions catching glimpses of men screwing each other in corners while onlookers masturbate (one of the masturbaters being Noé himself). In this scene, and the whole first half of the film, the camera is the star of the show ... the dialogue is barely noticeable and barely important. Noé succeeds in making us nervous and tense, and we feel the something close to the fear and frustration and anger and hatred that Marcus feels. Director’s often use the camera as the audience’s friend, something which lures them into the film and the story, but it’s far more unusual to use the camera to unsettle an audience to such a degree and for such a prolonged period.

Irréversible begins at its characters most desperate moments. It shows rough rancid grueling expressions of violence and sex. There’s no doubt that it’s along the film’s violent and sexual edges that Noé’s expressive abilities are most alive. It ends fairly blandly with its characters happiest moments. And before the film starts and after it ends we are told: "Time Destroys All Things". And this mix of the depraved and the philosophical, the brutal and artistic, is exactly what could cause this film to be banned -- and exactly what makes it so human -- even if it’s a side of humanity some people would rather not see.