Irreversible

Director: Gaspar Noe

2002 / 94min / 35mm

Fourteen long sequence shots arranged in reverse chronology take us on a journey from hell to heaven, from nightmarish violence to connubial bliss. In a BDSM club evocatively called Club Rectum, Pierre (Albert Dupontel) dashes in the face of a man who’s just broken the arm of his friend, Marcus (Vincent Cassel), and is preparing to rape him. From this memorable cold open, we see the events leading up to this bloody denouement—an evening that begins (or ends, as it were) as an innocent outing by the two friends and Marcus’s girlfriend, Alex (Monica Bellucci). Not a film to leave the viewer indifferent, to put it very mildly, featuring a positively punitive, bowel-churning soundtrack by Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter.

Distributor: Altered Innocence

Part of This Night Has Opened My Eyes