IRREVERSIBLE

[Autumnal]

I saw this thing last night at my local art house. The hype on the net was just too much to bear; I was unendingly curious. I thought it was genius, and the single most disturbing and upsetting thing I've ever seen. The weight of the film didn't hit me until I got home, and I re-read Jeff Wells' column on it, and he mentioned that the guy who gets his face destroyed by a fire extinguisher at the top of the film ISN'T the rapist, and if you look closely, you can see the rapist in the background chuckling to himself and ducking out. When I walked out of the film I thought the thing the filmmaker did to screw the audience over was show them the revenge payoff BEFORE the horrible act happens, thereby negating them the full emotional pleasure of seeing the rapist destroyed. Since we've already seen it, the two events do not necessarily connect in the proper order in our heads, and we are simply left sickened by the rape scene and then forced to watch this woman's relatively happy life before it happened. When I came home and found out that not only was there no payoff, but that the revenge-driven boyfriend had simply killed an innocent and allowed the rapist to escape... well, I basically curled up into a little ball and tried to fall asleep and forget about it. No dice. Unforgettable and permenantly damaging, I think. Probably something everyone should see. Earlier that day I saw "Bend it like Beckham", which is perhaps the polar opposite in terms of mood, theme, and content. I sorta wish I'd watched them in reverse order.

On that note, has anyone else seen it? What did you think?
-Zac