:SRELIOPS

I'm gasping out of a double dip into the stylish hells of Gaspar Noe: "Irreversible" and "Enter the Void." Need some breath.

First of all, these are two movies that you should GO WATCH NOW because they're simply provocative masterpieces of style, gripping and excruciating. (Intentionally excruciating movies succeed because they have made us care. Lars Von Trier, Lukas Moodysson and Michael Haneke excel at that. Unintentionally excruciating movies make you aware of your mortality, and the fact that times being a-wasted watching crap.) Gaspar Noe (accent on the e) is an awesome stylist, and I shall continue watching him. (Substance? We'll discuss.)



I had seen "Irreversible" when it came out in 2003. It is unforgettable, and I will assume you know its gimmick: it is told in reverse. Not exactly backwards. Its different, clearly separate scenes play forwards chronologically. It is not a confusing movie. You see the terrible ending, and then the scenes that led to it. Its two horrifying centerpieces are one of monstrous violent revenge, and, earlier, a nine-minute rape that prompted that beginning/ conclusion. Then you're dropped off at the happy ending/beginning of the night. That you know will go to shit. You're trapped in a backwards roller-coaster, and you're complicit on anything it runs over.

You were warned.

It is in many ways, a simple movie. There's this guy, Marcus. (He's played by Vincent Cassel, who was in "Black Swan," and the Mesrine movies, and in Ocean's 12/13, and "Eastern Promises," and... He's basically the current ubiquituous Gerard Depardieu-like French giant.)

Marcus has a BEAUTIFUL girlfriend called Alex (Monica Bellucci, Cassel's real life wife, who recently, alas, also suffered tragically in the SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA). Alex's ex boyfriend, Pierre (Albert Dupontel) still hangs around with them, in a friendly, healthy threesome of civilized people. Everything's going great and they're going to a party, and then Marcus gets high and starts behaving all retarded and his girlfriend gets pissed at his immaturity (for a particular emotional reason which I won't disclose, DO watch the movie). Anyway, Pierre wonders if maybe he should accompany Alex in her storming off, but she reassures him it's all right, she's just going to go home.

Then (before!)- and although I've warned of spoilers, you pretty much know this going into the movie- Alex, walking alone at night, runs into a psychopath who brutally rapes her and beats her. Then, (before!) Marcus, (who's understandably FUCKING PISSED OFF AND STILL HIGH) and Pierre (who's also understandably pissed off, but not high, and tries to be logical and appeal to calmness) track down the rapist for revenge- and that's fucking brutal and horrible too.



That's pretty much all there is to it. It is so well done that it does provoke discussion, and you WILL feel what mad revenge feels like, and you WILL feel what being savagely raped feels like.

It is a heart-pounding, amazingly directed movie. ALL STYLE, I said. Here are the problems with the substance.

Noe is working with three high-minded concepts. The first two he deals with in very shallow manner. The third, he simply leaves the audience to figure out and be uncomfortable with, and it is the one that makes this movie provocative.

The concepts are these:

1- REVENGE- and how it turns us into the very monsters we are pursuing;

2-RESPONSIBILITY- and how one dumb action (like getting inappropriately high and neglecting your girlfriend at a party) can lead to disasters and even deaths;

3-AUDIENCE COMPLICITY- Most of the audience will find Monica Bellucci desirable and understand why someone would love to have sex with her- BUT NOT LIKE THAT! Most of the audience will find the rape reprehensible and understand why someone would love to punish the m*******g rapist- BUT NOT LIKE THAT!

And that's where Noe winks: are you SURE "not like that"? Are you SURE you're not getting a little turned on seeing Monica in her nipply barely there dress? And imagine if your girlfriend WAS raped, are you SURE you wouldn't LOVE to bash that rapist's face in with, say, a fire extinguisher? Wouldn't it feel good to make him suffer for all the pain he's caused, and the beauty he's destroyed? Even knowing you're going to cause even MORE suffering and death and violence? And you'll just be perpetuating the cycle?

*wink wink* says Gaspar Noe. YOU decide what that all means!

Let's talk about the first two, REVENGE and RESPONSIBILITY, and how they apply to this movie.
Noe is making a decent case, although it might take a lot of objectivity to realize that, that revenge is NOT the way to go, that objectively, killing and maiming someone is EXACTLY like killing and maiming someone, doesn't matter whether the person you're killing and maiming is a nun, a carpenter, an electrician, a thief, a soldier, a child, an ugly pimp, or a pretty girl. Whatever it is that you're brutally killing, it makes YOU a brutal killer. And it makes it easy for YOU to get brutally killed in an expanding wave of violence for which all of humanity is suffering. This is as old as Greek plays, as old as Biblical commandments. If someone kills Cain for having killed Abel, then that someone is just as bad as Cain.

Couldn't agree more.

But... hey... from THIS movie? I can't imagine anyone NOT feeling like: "FUCK MORALITY AND WISDOM. The dude who raped and punched and deformed pretty pretty Monica Bellucci deserves as many fire extinguishers to the skull as can be found!"

So... Shallow.

Worse, in the responsibility area? In the idea that things are inevitable or irreversible? The movie crumbles, which is why it is a masterpiece of style but not of substance. There is no direct correlation between the triggering event, (Marcus losing control at a party) and Monica Bellucci wandering off alone into Rape Alley at 3 in the morning. That was HER decision. An unwise one, perhaps but is it HER fault she got raped? HELL NO! Maybe Pierre, the nice ex-boyfriend, SHOULD have been more insistent at accompanying her- is it his fault a rape happened HELL NO! He didn't want to seem pushy or needy or over-protective or step beyond his boundaries- and he certainly couldn't predict something bad would happen. How COULD anyone predict there would be a psychopathic rapist pimp abusing a tranny exactly on the same place Alex chooses to walk? No one could. So guess what, neither Marcus or Alex or Pierre or Alex are to blame for the rape. The rapist is. So the movie's logic crumbles and there are only two true morals here:

1) If you're lucky enough to be banging a world-class beauty like Monica Bellucci, don't be a douchebag to her, and don't let her run off into dark, evil streets alone in her flimsy dress. Call her a cab, for God's sake.

2) Sometimes, some real bad shit goes down and it clouds our vision and we make it even worse.

THAT'S DEEEEEEEEEEP.



You want even MORE style over substance? "Enter the Void." This movie is also dazzling visually, Noe's replication of a trip on DMT (Dimethyltryptamine, a psychedelic compound that can be found in plants, and there's a little bit of it already naturally occurring in people too. It's derived from the famous tryptophan amino-acid.) At least I THINK that's what this is. "Enter the Void" also involves "The Tibetan Book of the Dead," the tripper's stripper sister, sights fantastical, neurological visits to Heaven, lots of nonsense, lots of seediness, lots of transcendence. Very little substance. BUT a trip. I would suggest, if you're a law-abiding, scaredy Dear Imaginary Reader like me, that you GO WATCH NOW and enjoy a vicarious harmless drug trip. If you're a scuzzy junkie Dear Imaginary Reader, then really, why bother with a rental?!? Go get high!!!