I'm not one of those people who thinks this film is pornographic. I get the movie. It's a good movie; especially for a young, relatively new filmmaker. But I couldn't agree more with everyone who argues that it would be infinitely better told chronologically. We would have gotten everything Noe had to say and so much more. The film would have built to a shattering, deeply emotional climax and the fact that it doesn't is one of the reasons that the movie misses greatness.
The other films ("Memento", "Betrayal" etc.) which have so successfully been told in reverse still followed the pattern of having a climactic conclusion. Catharsis is essential to all great drama and has been ever since the ancient Greeks invented the artform of tragedy. A series of events create a rising action, a momentum of audience involvement that carries you through until it reaches a height near the end where all the tension that has been adding up must finally be expelled.
It's the same principal as an orgasm which perhaps explains why the term "climax" is synonymous. Noe starts this film at a fever pitch that is undoubtably one of the most intense sequences in the history of storytelling. Since nothing can possibly top it (not even an unblinkingly graphic 10+ minute rape scene) the rest of the film becomes anti-climactic. Imagine having your orgasm a few minutes into sex without it adequately building but then being forced to continue grinding away progressively felling less and less for another hour and a half. That's the cumulative effect of "Irreversible".
In fact, I should amend my earlier argument: catharsis is not only essential but even further, I propose that it is the true aim of dramatic tragedy and that story is just ultimately a way of helping to achieve that release for the audience. It's also crucial to note that a climax isn't necessarily the same as a payoff.
I disagree with Ebert (who argued this particular point first) that told chronologically the violence would have been a payoff. There's two important reasons it wouldn't be: We would have clearly understood that not only did they kill the wrong guy but also that it was PIERRE who kills him, not Marcus as we are led to expect from his ever increasingly violent behavior.
I'm willing to bet that because of the intentionally chaotic way the club scene is shot, the idea that many will turn their eyes away and because we probably don't know which guy is which yet; as few as 10% of the audience might realize that Pierre is the killer the first time they see the film. Even Ebert didn't. I freely admit that I didn't. Did any of you? I only found out about it here on the message boards and to me that fact drastically changes the entire film.
The film would have been much more powerful to me had that been clear. If it ended as it should have with Pierre, who we see throughout to be a controlled, reasonable nonviolent man killing the wrong guy then I don't see how that can constitute satisfying any kind of vicarious vigilante payoff the audience might subconsciously want for Alex's rape. We would see a senseless act of violence made even more tragic than the act of violence it inspired. We would still have been left to figure out how and why such a gentle man could be capable of it.
Yes, I noticed in the rape scene that they got the wrong guy. However, had I seen everything that happens before the party I would have had true empathy for "Alex" rather than just sympathy for "a woman" getting raped. I would have felt like I knew her. That's the distinction between empathy and sympathy for me: it's horrible and sad to read about a person being raped and for that person I have sympathy because they are a fellow member of the human race. If I find out though, that my best friend/wife/girlfriend/mother or sister(etc.) was raped now how do I feel? That, my friends, is empathy. There's absolutely no comparison to how much more affected you are when you personally know the victim.
In fact, There's even a scene where Noe effectively makes my point about the immeasurable difference between general feelings and personal ones. Witness the scene where Marcus and Pierre walk out of the party. They hear someone was raped: no major reaction. Then they see who it was...
That reaction when they see her is what I feel we, as audience members, were robbed of when Noe unwisely chose to tell the story backwards in favor of merely trying to make some kind of vague intellectual statement about the inevitability of time or fate or whatever it is he thinks he's saying.
Telling it forwards would have done nothing to diminish retaining those philosophic ideas and the addition of the personal details would have, I feel, made for one of the most overwhelming and devastating emotional film experiences of all time.
Then again, seeing it unfold as it happened with all of that character and story knowledge accumulating would unquestionably make this film even harder for the average person to watch than it already is now.
Because then those infamous scenes would have wrung our hearts even more than our stomachs.
The other films ("Memento", "Betrayal" etc.) which have so successfully been told in reverse still followed the pattern of having a climactic conclusion. Catharsis is essential to all great drama and has been ever since the ancient Greeks invented the artform of tragedy. A series of events create a rising action, a momentum of audience involvement that carries you through until it reaches a height near the end where all the tension that has been adding up must finally be expelled.
It's the same principal as an orgasm which perhaps explains why the term "climax" is synonymous. Noe starts this film at a fever pitch that is undoubtably one of the most intense sequences in the history of storytelling. Since nothing can possibly top it (not even an unblinkingly graphic 10+ minute rape scene) the rest of the film becomes anti-climactic. Imagine having your orgasm a few minutes into sex without it adequately building but then being forced to continue grinding away progressively felling less and less for another hour and a half. That's the cumulative effect of "Irreversible".
In fact, I should amend my earlier argument: catharsis is not only essential but even further, I propose that it is the true aim of dramatic tragedy and that story is just ultimately a way of helping to achieve that release for the audience. It's also crucial to note that a climax isn't necessarily the same as a payoff.
I disagree with Ebert (who argued this particular point first) that told chronologically the violence would have been a payoff. There's two important reasons it wouldn't be: We would have clearly understood that not only did they kill the wrong guy but also that it was PIERRE who kills him, not Marcus as we are led to expect from his ever increasingly violent behavior.
I'm willing to bet that because of the intentionally chaotic way the club scene is shot, the idea that many will turn their eyes away and because we probably don't know which guy is which yet; as few as 10% of the audience might realize that Pierre is the killer the first time they see the film. Even Ebert didn't. I freely admit that I didn't. Did any of you? I only found out about it here on the message boards and to me that fact drastically changes the entire film.
The film would have been much more powerful to me had that been clear. If it ended as it should have with Pierre, who we see throughout to be a controlled, reasonable nonviolent man killing the wrong guy then I don't see how that can constitute satisfying any kind of vicarious vigilante payoff the audience might subconsciously want for Alex's rape. We would see a senseless act of violence made even more tragic than the act of violence it inspired. We would still have been left to figure out how and why such a gentle man could be capable of it.
Yes, I noticed in the rape scene that they got the wrong guy. However, had I seen everything that happens before the party I would have had true empathy for "Alex" rather than just sympathy for "a woman" getting raped. I would have felt like I knew her. That's the distinction between empathy and sympathy for me: it's horrible and sad to read about a person being raped and for that person I have sympathy because they are a fellow member of the human race. If I find out though, that my best friend/wife/girlfriend/mother or sister(etc.) was raped now how do I feel? That, my friends, is empathy. There's absolutely no comparison to how much more affected you are when you personally know the victim.
In fact, There's even a scene where Noe effectively makes my point about the immeasurable difference between general feelings and personal ones. Witness the scene where Marcus and Pierre walk out of the party. They hear someone was raped: no major reaction. Then they see who it was...
That reaction when they see her is what I feel we, as audience members, were robbed of when Noe unwisely chose to tell the story backwards in favor of merely trying to make some kind of vague intellectual statement about the inevitability of time or fate or whatever it is he thinks he's saying.
Telling it forwards would have done nothing to diminish retaining those philosophic ideas and the addition of the personal details would have, I feel, made for one of the most overwhelming and devastating emotional film experiences of all time.
Then again, seeing it unfold as it happened with all of that character and story knowledge accumulating would unquestionably make this film even harder for the average person to watch than it already is now.
Because then those infamous scenes would have wrung our hearts even more than our stomachs.