Irreversible

Film can be a powerful medium and here it uses these extremes to take us to a part of our world and our nature that not everyone wants to see. I had a long think after watching this film and tried to imagine what the outcome would have been like if it had not been told in the unconventional style that it was. I thought "would it not have made the rape scene more powerful and affecting if we had been allowed to know the character and maybe not just see her as some stranger. the conclusion i eventually reached was no mostly because i imagine this as being done in the style of a newspaper article, maybe you hear something of a woman being raped on the news and then you pick up a newspaper and read about her life or how many children she has who have been affected. Presenting it this way at the start you wonder why he wants revenge and then you have all the evidence for it laid out in front of you. This rape scene was hard to stomach purely because of the fixed camera and no cuts, it feel more like the rapist was filming his crime for his own gratification, I felt a huge stir of sadness and sympathy for this woman even though i knew nothing of her, I also felt anger at the man who appears in the distance and just walks away. when the camera did move it was a dizzying unnatural movement that moves in for a close up and should make any decent moral soul turn away in disgust. all too often rape like murder is presented in a stylised shortened way with angles and editing but this is a raw honest portrayal of what I imagine a woman goes through and makes you feel the way it does due to its brutality and length.


This film will leave you disorientated, shaken and maybe a little bit sick. It is most certainly not entertainment, but an experience and like all experiences we can learn from it.