Sounds like a bunch of USC film grads are writing these "10" rated reviews. Absolute garbage "film marking". They keep saying it's "Honest"....there's something very NOT-HONEST about making a film purely to intentionally disturb the viewers (their words.) An anal rape scene in a hallway....yeah ok...disturbing...but only because the "filmmaker" felt he needed to put it in a film. Besides all the BS propaganda "disturbing" crap....there's soooooo much useless dialogue...in every scene. It just goes on and on and on like each scene will never end...and for no reason besides stretching each scene to make this garbage "film" longer. The camera work...OMG. Let me just take a camera and jump from one actor to the next so you can't focus on the really crap set design and call it "ground breaking". Give me a break. If you're into artsy-crap movies then I'm sure you'll love this and be forever changed and always look back on this as THE GREATEST FILM since...well....since EVER. But if you're not one of these film school grads that will never make anything beyond there silly little short films (that they think will change the world) then you'll absolutely hate this GARBAGE.

Say you were reading a novel. The reputation of this novel preceded it, it had been called one of the most intense ever written. The novel is 11 chapters long, and those chapters are only one or two long protracted sentences each. The second to last chapter is beautiful and brilliant. It recontextualizes the chapters that preceded it, and is so perfectly written that it feels like a privilege that you get to read it. But the remaining ten chapters ranged from pointless to artistically and morally inexcusable. Would you still read the novel?Gaspar Noe's Irreversible consists of 11 scenes, many of them seemingly filmed in one take. It is one of the most self indulgent films I've seen. It fails to make any point or to have any meaningful aesthetic; instead it simply exists to show that Noe could make a film like this. This is the greatest sin a film can commit. It's fine to make bold visionary films, it's fine to make films as unpleasant as this. But to make them for ego, and not for characters, ideas, stories or images is reprehensible.Irreversible is a vigilante movie at it's core. The success of this genre hinges on the audience knowing what is being avenged. We don't learn what is being avenged until scene 10, and it is beautiful, and we are forced to think "was the previous hour worth it?" I don't think it was. By structuring the film the way he has, Noe has robbed us of any characterization or motivation-we are left with ugly senseless violence that has the emotional impact of watching pigeons squabble on the street. And the movie still has the gall to think this will hurt us. Obviously a ten minute rape scene will be shocking. It does not take skill to make this.Maybe the pointlessness is Noe's point. Maybe this is an anti reactionary, anti violence movie. The racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and violence shown here ultimately are so useless one could draw the conclusion that the movie is telling us to stay away from these modes in times where we crave revenge. But honestly, I just have no reason to care. I have no reason to think about this movie any more.

First, above all, and crucially, the story is told backward. Two other films have famously used that chronology: Harold Pinter's "Betrayal," the story of a love affair that ends (begins) in treachery, and Christopher Nolan's "Memento (2000 movie)", which begins with the solution to a murder and tracks backward to its origin. Now, consider this — Irreversible (2002) falls somewhere in between the two— The fact is, the reverse chronology makes "Irreversible" a film that structurally argues against rape and violence, while ordinary chronology would lead us down a seductive narrative path toward a shocking, exploitative payoff. By placing the ugliness at the beginning, Gaspar Noe forces us to think seriously about the sexual violence involved. The movie does not end with rape as its climax and send us out of the theatre as if something had been communicated. It starts with it, and asks us to sit there for another hour and process our thoughts. It is therefore moral – at a structural level.Unique & Weirdly Stylish, it begins with—well, in "reverse"—Ending credits. Reversed. No first names. Only surnames. Various letters mirror-inverted. Slowly rolling down. Slowly sloping. Slowly moving across the screen. An image of a man sitting in a bed, tumbling.Then, a fanfare. Large drums. Names appear. Titles. Words. All glimmering. Red. White. Yellow.This is how it begins. Gaspar Noé's uncompromising "Irréversible", one of the most scandalous, most discussed European films of the last 20 years. Good? Bad? Masterpiece? Rubbish? Who cares? One thing is for sure: you can't UN-see "Irréversible". It's impossible… and irreversible."Irreversible (2002)"— has the ability to make you appreciate and cherish your life, in part because it shows you how easily your happiness can be taken away. It is a film that will allow you to love those around you even more than you already do. Any film that can do all that is a masterpiece in my book. The eye catcher? Of course it's, Monica Bellucci—highly regarded as being one of the most beautiful women in the world—and nobody in their stable/healthy mind would ever want to see her getting brutally beat up and raped!"Rape" — happens. It happens to someone, somewhere in the world, every minute of every day. To avert your eyes is to deny that it exists in your world. To turn away is to shirk responsibility. Weirdest moment: The extended 10 minute long take rape scene of Alex (Monica Bellucci), what else? — But how can I just ignore the scene where a man is savagely bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher?There will be those that are repulsed by this film, a film that can make Requiem for a Dream (2000 movie) seem like a little girl's fairy-tale. If you are one of those who refuse to watch 'Irreversible' or one who watches and is offended… then you are living in a fake fairy-tale world of your own. This great French film is as brutally truthful and poignant as any in recent memory. It is one of the saddest films I have ever seen. And yet, because of it's reverse chronology, the final scenes of blissful romanticism are some of the most beautiful and heartbreaking moments ever committed to the silver screen. This is a courageous and magnificent artistic achievement!

You know? The thing I most value when I am watching a movie is the chance that catharsis could happen. Something that happens in very few occasions but something that I chase frequently. Then there are the movies that leave me lukewarm, which are the majority. Then there is Irreversible, which provoked in me something resembling an anti-catharsis. I would never have imagined such a rejection for a movie, such a feeling of dirt. Did the movie want to explore the limits of cinema? He succeeded but at the expense of cinematography. I would encourage anyone to ignore such a bad taste movie. The end is not justified. The means are not such. There is controversy and morbid about this film but it has nothing to do with art, I think.