Stars: Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel, Stephane Drouot, Mourad Khima, Jo Prestia

Director: Gaspar Noe

Summary: A couple who attend a party with a friend find their evening interrupted by an extreme act of violence. Soon they all realise what each is capable of. French dialogue.

After what would normally be the end credits (which run backwards), IRREVERSIBLE begins with a heated hunt through a gay S&M club. It is a chaotic sequence shot from a wildly spiraling camera seamlessly edited together to appear as one single shot and culminating in one of the most violent murders ever portrayed on celluloid. Following this crescendo, Gaspar Noe's (I STAND ALONE) film uses a reverse narrative structure similar to MEMENTO through which the audience learns the motivations for the murder and the relationships of three parties directly involved, the beautiful Alex (Monica Bellucci) and two men who adore her (Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel). The frenzied style of the opening gives way to increasingly static camera work throughout leading to an idyllic final shot of Alex, who the audience has long known is a doomed woman, set to Beethoven and alive with color and youthful innocence otherwise absent from this bleak urban nightmare. The film disregards conventional editing by ending each scene with a dizzying camera whirl. Since each scene is intended to look like a single take (although there are seamless cuts throughout), this gives the film the appearance of one continuous shot.

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Irreversiblebegins with the closing credits running backwards before the film begins (or ends) with Marcus (Vincent Cassell) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel) being escorted out of a gay s/m club by the cops, Marcus with his arm broken and Pierre in handcuffs. The "story" proceeds to unwind in a series of single-take scenes that unfold Memento-style, with each scene giving more context to what we have seen previously.

Each scenario depicts actions, dialogue, incident, behaviour and circumstance that the lead characters might have wished didn't happen, ranging from extreme violence through awkward social situations to mild embarrassment. The central character (and possible dreamer of this whole what-if story) emerges as Alex (Monica Bellucci), who suffers the worst in a very hard-to-watch rape sequence in an underpass. Semi-improvised, the scenes all have attack and power as themes, with later/earlier conversational sequences that suggest life isn't all sexual assaults in the dark, showing equal cinematic imagination with the horrors. Arguably, this is not a film most would subject themselves to twice, but it is something that stays in the mind for days after viewing, sparking far more ideas and emotions than most wallow-in-nastiness pictures. --Kim Newman

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	French
Region:	Region 0
Special Features:	Star And Director Filmographies, Scene Selection, Film Notes, Original Trailers, Special Effects Featurette, Making Of Documentary, Alternate Scenes, World Cinema Trailer Reel
Subtitles:	English
Year:	2002
Release Date:	December 4, 2006
Runtime:	95 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	T V D 3458
Keywords:	General, Edition, Collectors, French, Drama, Irreversible
Genre:	Drama