Irreversible [Blu-ray]

Director: Gaspar Noé Gaspar Noé

Overview

Gaspar No?'s Irreversible utilizes the same storytelling technique used by Christopher Nolan in Memento and Harold Pinter in Betrayal. Consisting of about a dozen scenes, all shot in single takes, Irreversible charts a disturbing night in the life of Marcus (Vincent Cassel), but presents the events in reverse chronological order. The audience eventually learns how the beautiful Alex (Cassel's real-life partner Monica Bellucci) is involved. The film opens with a violent altercation at a gay sex club and works backward to explain how and why the violence occurred. The actors improvised the vast majority of the dialogue starting from a four-page story outline. Irreversible was screened in competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/27/2023
UPC:	0688187004464
Original Release:	2002
Rating:	NR
Source:	Altered Innocence
Language:	English
Time:	1:34:00
Sales rank:	12,763

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Monica Bellucci	Alex,Actor
Vincent Cassel	Marcus
Albert Dupontel	Pierre
Jo Prestia	Le Tenia
Philippe Nahon	Philippe
Stéphane Drouot	Stephane
Mourad Khima	Mourad
Philippe Norton	Philippe
Jean-Louis Costes	Man Beaten to Death in Club
Christophe Lemaire	Dancer with the Hawaiian Shirt
Gaspar Noé	uncredited
Gondouin	Mike,Mick
Hellal	Layde
Fesche	Taxi Driver
Jara-Millo	Concha
Le Quellec	Inspector
Isabelle Giami	Isabelle
Foulaux	Janice
Fatima Adoum	Fatima
Nato	le commissaire
Thomas Bangalter	Composer
Thomas Bangaltar	Composer

Technical Credits

Gaspar Noé

Gaspar Noé	Director,Screenwriter
Rodolphe Chabrier	Special Effects
Richard Grandpierre	Producer
Jacques Grant	Casting
Christophe Rossignon	Producer
Vincent Cassel	Producer
Brahim Chioua	Producer
Emmanuel Gateau	Producer
Jean-Luc Audy	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Xavier Bonneyrat	Sound Effects
Marc Boucrot	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Olivier Busson	Sound Effects
Vincent Cosson	Sound Effects
Cyril Holtz	Sound/Sound Designer
Valérie Deloof	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Formally audacious, stylistically sound, and stomach-sickeningly grisly, Gaspar Noé's stateside breakthrough is unarguably the work of a filmmaker with technique to spare. Whether or not this year's Gallic enfant terrible has anything to contribute to cinema other than skillful button-pushing, however, remains to be seen. Irreversible's facile tale of a once-idyllic couple caught in a torpor of rape, drugs, and retribution is loaded with easy ironies and horror-flick set pieces. Noé's technical gymnastics keep it undeniably compelling: Shot in fluid, color-saturated, whirling-dervish long takes, edited in reverse, and given a throbbing, hypnotic sound design from Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter, Irreversible's deft moves don't allow the viewer a second to ponder some of the script's more implausible, trumped-up conceits. An early-film cab-ride in which our anti-heroes assault a foreigner, for instance, serves as little more than an intentionally disorienting emotional red herring. Likewise, copious screen time is allotted to setting up the three lead characters' dynamic, which is of little use to Noé other than to upset audience expectations. And it's more than a little disingenuous that Monica Bellucci's much-discussed rape scene happens to be the only sequence shot with a steady camera. Noé purportedly relished the severe reactions provoked by screenings of Irreversible -- walk-outs, cat calls, and the like -- which would only make sense for a person whose ultimate goal is to create the cinematic equivalent of car-wreck gawking.