An integrated work whose form clearly mirrors its content.
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03/14/03
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Irreversible (2003)
55
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:119
Fresh:66
Rotten:53
Average Rating:5.6/10
Consensus: Though well-filmed, Irreversible feels gratuitous in its extreme violence.
Theatrical Release:Mar 7, 2003 Limited
Box Office: $573,018
Synopsis: Irreversible is a demanding and audacious but thoroughly rewarding cinematic experience that has been thrilling audiences since its world premiere in Cannes and its North American debut screenings... [More]
Starring: Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel, Philippe Nahon
Director: Gaspar Noe
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Reviews for Irreversible
Noe's summation is an ideological sucker-punch from a filmmaker who gets off on abusive relationships.
03/14/03
Top CriticYou say you hated it and it made you throw up? That's the spirit!
03/14/03
Mostly just a tantrum, the sort of stuff Polanski at any stage of his career would've crumpled up and discarded for being too trite.
03/14/03
So formally and stylistically aggressive that this aspect overpowers what it has to say, which isn't much.
03/14/03
Top CriticThe 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.
03/14/03
Top CriticThe spinning camera tricks may be done to disorient the audience, but they make it an effort to sit and watch the film - when you add in the disturbing content, it's practically impossible.
03/14/03
At a time when filmmakers...seem most concerned with not offending anyone, there's something radically appealing about a film that refuses to coddle its audience and assure them that everything's okay.
03/13/03
Gaspar Noe uses the cinema as an assault weapon...
03/13/03
The emotional (and ethical) catch is this: though the characters are unable to see beyond their separate, present moments, you know the fallouts from jump.
03/13/03
It's a gritty, vicious assault on the senses, one that very nearly evaporates due to writer-director Gaspar Noé's short-changing of the narrative.
03/13/03
Top CriticIt is a work specifically designed to disturb and disgust, and it accomplishes both goals so completely some people will find it impossible to watch at all.
03/13/03
Once the shock wears off and feeling returns to the extremities, Irreversible is unmistakably life-altering and affirming.
03/13/03
Top CriticConvinces me as nothing else so far that I have reached the point of diminishing returns with movies that pretend to be profound by having their pulpy, banal stories told backwards and sideways and upside-down.
03/13/03
Top CriticThe hard, lurid images catch you in a vise. But dramatically, with few exceptions, it's a mess.
03/13/03
Top CriticIt feels less like a movie and more like a violation... Noe subverts cheap satisfactions of the genre and questions how we look at revenge pictures in the first place.
03/12/03
It's nearly unendurable, but it's neither insensitive nor immoral. Crucially, this is a film that grieves.
03/12/03
This isn’t a film you merely watch -- it’s a film you survive... or you don’t, if you walk out of it.
03/12/03
Gaspar Noe's horrifying film about rape and revenge erases the boundaries between porn and exploitation.
03/12/03
Top CriticA project of vast extremes, a flagrant affirmation of absolute darkness and light.
03/11/03
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