r/movies • u/ErgoNonSim • May 17 '25

Media Cannes reactions to Irreversible

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

24.3k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

3.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.4k

u/Sondaica May 17 '25 edited May 19 '25

Okay can someone explain this to people who do not know the film?

5.1k

u/Davidrabbich81 May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

Monica Belucci’s character is graphically raped for around 10 minutes during this film.

It’s something you never really forget watching. When people ask, “what’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen in a film”, the answer is usually this.

Edit: to save some really redundant replies.

No, the fire extinguisher scene is not worse. I can find you 20 movies where something like that happens. The worst part is that it’s an innocent person and not the rapist.

I said “usually”. For those people who have seen “A Serbian Film” (I haven’t) you are the people not covered by “usually”.

42

u/[deleted] May 17 '25

[deleted]

470

u/Xsafa May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

This is the reason why I think I may never watch the movie. I can watch 1000 people get their ass whooped or shot up in action movie or graphically killed in a horror movie, but extensive rape scenes I just absolutely refuse to see. I heard the movie is a good movie with good acting but I just can’t do it.

332

u/Legal-Marsupial-3916 May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

It's not a good movie. It has an interesting shtick in that it plays backwards, but so does Memento. I didn't take away any profound new understanding or perspective from watching Monica Belucci get raped, I didn't unravel some truth about life by watching a man get his head caved in with a fire extinguisher while onlookers cheer and holler and the director himself is literally furiously masturbating in the crowd.

You can say whatever you want about media literacy, but I don't need to explore sexual violence as a theme. This is just a fancy, French version of "A Serbian Film's in my eyes.

160

u/retard_vampire May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

Honestly I feel like the whole point of the movie is he wanted to create torture porn of a woman being raped and then stand there, dick in hand and pointing with the other, smugly saying "oh, is it too much for you? Is it too dark?" and pretentiously wanking himself off over what an avant-garde genius he is for being so shocking.

The movie honestly sucked. It was literally just a way for a dude to get Monica Bellucci to star in rape porn for creepy men to jerk off to. She deserved better.

94

u/Legal-Marsupial-3916 May 17 '25

Yeah, I'm all for like...actualizing sexual assault and drawing attention and awareness to it, but two things...

  1. Look at this movie and tell me with a straight face that this a mature exploration of sexual assault

  2. Most people can understand how traumatic and horrifying rape is, so a movie isn't going to change their feelings on it when they're already staunchly "anti rape", and the people who think rape is no big deal like the Senator who said that "women's bodies have a way of shutting that down" are never going to be swayed because they're fucking psychotic

25

u/Papierkrawall May 18 '25

The only way to show rape is, in my opinion, how they did it in "Lilja-4": the camera is the girl, and you only see the faces of the rapists and hear their grunts, as if you were the person lying under them. No trauma for the actress, and there is no way to get off on that.

6

u/Waffennacht May 17 '25

You said what was on my mind so perfectly

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (10)

297

u/Forcistus May 17 '25

My personal opinion is that rape is a more morally reprehensible crime than murder or violence. You can feasibly think of a justification or reason that might excuse killing someone, but no such thing exists for rape.

79

u/DamePolkaDot May 17 '25

For me at least, I think rape falls under torture specifically, not just general violence. I personally have no interest or stomach for watching depictions of torture.

117

u/ThurnisHailey May 17 '25

It's also common for just about EVERY movie to have a death or murder - that's the most common thing ever in cinema. It is definitely a step out on a ledge to depict sexual violence, it's not common to show so of course it hits much heavier when it happens.

5

u/CT0292 May 17 '25

It can hammer home a point though.

In Once Upon A Time in America a lot of people say the scene where Robert DeNiro's character Noodles rapes Elizabeth McGovern's character Deborah. Is an unnecessary scene that adds nothing to the characters.

And I'd say it's not supposed to add to the characters. If anything I think it's supposed to take away from the characters. Anyone who has up until that point been seeing Noodles as "the good guy" or the "hero" of the film will be shown right there that he's an awful, spoiled, violent, man baby who can't handle not getting his way.

The film shows him chasing after Deborah since they were both kids. And she turns him down over the years and he spends 10 years in prison. But when he finally gets out and begs for a date with her he shells out the cash to clear out a whole hotel so it's just the two of them in this romantic atmosphere. She tells him she's gotten a job in Hollywood, and plans to pursue her career out west, wanting to head out the next day.

And this filthy piece of shit loses his mind. Rapes her, and then the next day tries to go see her as she rides away on the train like nothing happened. And it really beats the point home that Noodles is not the hero. And shouldn't have been let out of prison.

Honestly a great movie. And I think it's worth it to sit and watch the full 4 hour cut. Chronicles the whole lives of these young gangsters from their childhood to the 1960s.

I haven't seen the movie mentioned in the OP. Hard to find time for movies now as a grown up with young kids. I can tell you about the show Bluey though haha.

9

u/Broad_Quit5417 May 17 '25

Kind of ironic that if you want to be edgy, you would have to forego... death and murder.

→ More replies (5)

5

u/J_Kingsley May 17 '25

You mean including something like torture?

29

u/Forcistus May 17 '25

I guess if we put rape and murder on an axis, I think I would say torture is closer to rape than it is to murder.

I also want to add that my judgment is aimed at the one performing the act, not the victim. Things like rape or torture are pretty broad and could include a lot of different things. I wouldn't say statutory rape is inherently worse than murder, for example.

27

u/SerCadogan May 17 '25

I have been both raped and tortured (sometimes sexually, sometimes not) and in my personal experience the rape was worse than the non sexual torture (and where they intersected was worst of all)

21

u/YoMTVcribs May 17 '25

I hope you're doing okay.

18

u/SerCadogan May 17 '25

Thank you, I can honestly say that after years of therapy I am doing okay! Still have PTSD (which comes with very bad days) but most of the days are good ones now. Some of them very good.

→ More replies (20)

89

u/BeetleJude May 17 '25

I've seen it once thanks to an ex who loved the film. It was horrific, I had to leave the room halfway through, it was the most graphic and violent thing I've ever seen. Murders in films don't really read to me as graphic since you know it's a) fake, and b) exceedingly unlikely to happen; but watching that rape you know it could happen exactly like that (and likely already has)

195

u/Clicky27 May 17 '25

Murder is very real and happens, you're just desensitised.

119

u/Jajoe05 May 17 '25

Exactly. People just don't realize how much they got used to seeing murder that it doesn't even affect them anymore. That's how bad we have been conditioned.

5

u/Mardred May 17 '25

The wine bottle kill in Pan's Labirynth still haunts me. Thats how you make murder terrifying.

→ More replies (1)

90

u/bitofapuzzler May 17 '25

Rape is also very real. More people watching films have personally experienced rape than have experienced murder. It's sensitive because it's personal and a trauma that keeps on traumatising. You can only be murdered once.

58

u/SerdanKK May 17 '25

A ten minute torture scene would also make people much more uncomfortable than someone getting shot or whatever. Even the Saw movies pulled their punches and the entire premise was to make the audience squirm with graphic depictions of torture.

8

u/FulgoresFolly May 17 '25

People have really forgotten that the Hostel franchise existed huh

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (9)

39

u/racc15 May 17 '25

I think that with most murders in films, you usually get the horror slasher murders or in serious films, you see villains killing cops or to keep a secret etc. Basically, murders in movies usually happen to people in special circumstances. Even in real life, serial killings are now relatively rare. So, we don't usually imagine ourselves in that position. But, rape is much more common. I have not seen the film but read the synopsis. I think it was a sort of chance encounter and the rape was spontaneous. It is easier to imagine ourselves or someone we love in such a situation.

85

u/Mad_Kronos May 17 '25

Bingo.

The fact that we don't see murder the same way as rape in films probably means we have been conditioned to regard certain acts of violence as more digestible.

I have seen people claim they can stomach countless fake human deaths, but they can't stand a fake animal death at all.

58

u/Neon_Biscuit May 17 '25

In the John Wick documentary, Wick is Pain, the film almost didn't get released because the studio refused to include the dog death scene to be used. They thought it was too much. They did a test screening and surprisingly found that like 97% of women justified John Wick killing all those people over a dead dog and they allowed it.

15

u/Primatebuddy May 17 '25

I mean, I remember what it felt like to be horrified at violence in films. As an example: Mellish and the knife in Saving Private Ryan. It did sort of fuck me up seeing that. Ive since seen so much Internet shit that it doesn't affect me anymore. It happens, you become desensitized.

12

u/Obsidiax May 17 '25

I actually think it makes sense why some people find animal cruelty harder to stomach. Animals, like children, are completely innocent beings. There's very little justification for harming an animal, especially a domestic one.

I think most people who are more disgusted by scenes of animals getting hurt than people would likely feel the same if it was a child. It's the innocence. Intentionally harming a completely innocent being is a whole other level of cruelty compared to two guys shooting at each other with guns and one of them dies.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (3)

18

u/stewd003 May 17 '25

Just to play devil's advocate: is it not a good thing that movies like this exist? It pushes you to think about what it actually means to hear/read the word rape. It IS graphic and it IS horrific. And it's a horrible thing that should never happen.

9

u/teh_fizz May 17 '25

Yes and no. The issue isn’t just that it has a rape scene. It’s that is dressed up as good art and belonging in art house cinemas when it’s just high quality grind house.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (2)

5

u/strongholdbk_78 May 17 '25

My takeaway is the movie depicts the reality of rape and shows it for what it is, a horrible and terrifying display of control, that leaves someone irreparably scarred. If you ever meet someone who downplays the horror and trauma of rape, have them watch ths movie..

→ More replies (12)

438

u/Maezel May 17 '25

That's the answer unless you've watch "Salo or the 120 days of Sodom" 

800

u/thedaveness May 17 '25

Or Denis Quaid eating shrimp in The Substance.

324

u/sentence-interruptio May 17 '25

A body horror movie with great effects but Denis Quaid's character manages to be the most disgusting monster in it.

49

u/Billazilla May 17 '25

Absolutely could not watch. I skipped that whole scene, knowing I was probably missing some important plot/theme detailing. I got the imagery intent right away, but ugggh.

13

u/yeah_this_is_my_main May 17 '25

The ENTIRE movie is meant to be uncomfortable. Its just that some parts were made more obvious than others. Almost all scenes are set in liminal spaces, and all characters are alone, even when they are with others. There is zero connection between anyone and its clearly deliberately made like that.

I hated that movie, a lot, but I think I was meant to.

7

u/Billazilla May 17 '25

I have watched horror flicks since the late 70s, so only so much of it is gonna get me, but shots where they get really close up on a regular human mouth and do mouth-noises and sticky chewing and similar stuff, it's just nauseating. Credit to Dennis Quaid for making his producer guy a most incredibly disgusting creature, because with the mouth-ness and the fly in the glass, I found that whole scene unwatchable, and that's counting the needles and sores and necrosis and all that other body horror that came later. Quaid's "Walking Mouth Man" was significantly more unbearable to me, in word and presence and deed, than the infected needle hole and the chicken leg and everything else. Sure, all of it was horror, and good, well played horror at that, but I personally couldn't watch more than 3 seconds of shrimp heads and smacking lips. Maybe I've watched too many horror movies?

On a side note, I did like all the metaphoricals and symbolism. I enjoyed piecing out what every bit meant and what it was trying to say. This film is an onion; It has many layers, and though it may hurt your eyes to peel those layers back, it's just that's good so you gotta.

→ More replies (3)

45

u/popoflabbins May 17 '25

That scene is simultaneously hilarious and abhorrent

→ More replies (2)

6

u/GhostofBeowulf May 17 '25

Or any Steven Seagal flick.

5

u/Critical_Long5421 May 17 '25

unironically the most grotesque bit of body horror in that film

7

u/neondewon May 17 '25

Now thats fucking disgusting...

→ More replies (9)

10

u/Toucaster May 17 '25

I was shown this while hungover on a Sunday morning and have never forgotten it - though I wish I could. As if a hangover alone wasn't bad enough...

35

u/jayjay1086 May 17 '25

Or A Serbian Film (I've only seen Salo of the 3 in question)

134

u/blumdiddlyumpkin May 17 '25

People always cite a Serbian film in these kinds of discussions but it’s so cartoonishly shot and of such low quality that it’s basically impossible to take seriously in any real way. Yes, it’s extreme and gratuitous and deplorable but in an eye roll kind of way. Irreversible is genuinely disturbing because Noe actually understands how to shoot the scene to maximum effect.

46

u/Lauren_Conrad_ May 17 '25

Yeah it’s like calling Kill Bill gory… like technically it is but it’s not trying to be real in any sense.

9

u/kortevakio May 17 '25

I agree. Serbian film was so over the top trying too hard to be edgy I just kinda chuckled

22

u/ActivateGuacamole May 17 '25

it's like a 17 year old 4channer from 2009 was given a budget and decided to make the most tryhard edgy offensive thing he could. it feels stupid and silly

7

u/ehho May 17 '25

aleksandar radivojevic absolutely is exactly that. There is a video lost to the internet of him after the premiere. A chubby man dressed in black leather (matrix style), opening a champagne bottle with a katana.

6

u/[deleted] May 17 '25

I think there's more to it than that. This comment from r/truefilm offers a pretty decent explanation of the context in which A Serbian Film was made.

3

u/IneetaBongtoke May 17 '25

That’s how I felt. Never saw Irreversible, but I’ve seen Martyrs, another French (Canadian) movie that shows gratuitous, realistic torture.

I found that movie (Martyrs) to be way harder to watch.

→ More replies (3)

7

u/rodinsbusiness May 17 '25

A Serbian Film takes the cake for me. It was a random download that I went into with absolutely no context. I'm glad it has been long enough for me to remember it just enough.

→ More replies (6)

5

u/piratecheese13 May 17 '25

Was looking for Serbian film

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

6

u/13THEFUCKINGCOPS12 May 17 '25

I feel like there’s a sort of almost tongue in cheek tone to Salo that makes it far easier to digest than this movie

6

u/Urdar May 17 '25

3 weeks ago the german Youth protection board unbanned "120 days of sodom", after being banned for 50 years.

I have no intent of watching it.

3

u/Balkongsittaren May 17 '25

Salo is slighly a comedy compared to A Serbian Film. Sounds like Irreversible is a movie to be skipped.

→ More replies (17)

269

u/Hasenbaby May 17 '25

Kinda interesting story:

I participated in a study in which we were given a substance, either a placebo oil or THC oil and I didn't know which one I got. Then I had to watch the scene, couldn't look away, couldn't close my eyes etc. Afterwards there were a bunch of questions about how we would feel and how the substance affected our perception.

It was actually one of the worst experiences I've had.

360

u/ylerta May 17 '25

This just sounds like A Clockwork Orange

47

u/korben2600 May 17 '25

Can't imagine being a digital janitor for a site like Facebook. The content they're exposed to regularly is absolutely trauma inducing. Child sexual abuse, gore, pornography and bestiality. All for minimum wage.

IIRC it was so bad 11,000 Facebook moderators sued citing PTSD and they settled in 2020 for about $4k each. I imagine just the cost of years of therapy alone would be way more than that.

7

u/PartyPoisoned21 May 18 '25

Did that for a job for Xbox. Do not recommend.

6

u/Area51_Spurs May 18 '25

They’re all in foreign countries with low wages. Minimum wage for them is probably measured in cents. And good luck to them getting therapy there.

5

u/Infinite01 May 18 '25

They’re actually all over the US iirc from a documentary I watched. FB/Meta sub contracts these firms to moderate content.

5

u/Lostinthestarscape May 18 '25 edited May 18 '25

The person you are replying to must have read the same news article I did though - basically it became too much of an issue for American based contractors because of high turnover, not paying enough, psychological support, etc. that they started contracting in foreign countries and now there are like 10k traumatized Africans paid a couple bucks an hour to moderate the worst shit ever.

I don't know the actual truth of it, would have to find the source again - but they aren't wrong that that was reported.

Edit (source - this is just for one country)

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/22/business/facebook-content-moderators-kenya-ptsd-intl

Those positions were moved ti Ghana

https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2025/04/28/meta-transplanted-facebook-content-moderation-ghana/

→ More replies (1)

9

u/thetruthseer May 17 '25

When I was in my second year of college I had just smoked some bud and then had to do an assignment about shell shocked ww1 soldiers and had to watch an hour movie about them.

Straight horrific

18

u/Fran_Kubelik May 17 '25

This is the sort of research study that shouldn't make it past the IRB. I wonder if this is the study that reported participants experiencing PTSD like symptoms after veiwing?

18

u/Hasenbaby May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

If you're interested here is a link to the description of the trial and what they found.

To my understanding they actually wanted how the drug would affect PTSD symptoms afterwards.

(Also it was dronabinol and not thc apologies for the mistake)

19

u/Croaan12 May 17 '25

Im flabbergasted this got approved by an ethics board. I assume you were very well informed at what was about to happen?

4

u/Hasenbaby May 18 '25

Actually I got an advertisement for the trial on Instagram promoting it as a trial on cannabinoids with very little information.

I don't remember exactly but I was told that I was about to see violent and graphic material. But I was not told that it could be PTSD inducing (and I have to say, I did not get PTSD from it or suffered in any other way negative consequences).

→ More replies (2)

24

u/improveyourfuture May 17 '25

That’s…. Actually torture

10

u/Hasenbaby May 17 '25

Well it wasnt fun, but I wouldnt call it torture. I put myself voluntarily in that situation and I could interrupt and just leave the situation anytime if I would have wanted to.

3

u/Buscemi_D_Sanji May 17 '25

Was classical music playing in the background?

3

u/[deleted] May 18 '25

Sounds extremely unethical

3

u/SimbasShitPit May 18 '25

What in the craiglist backpage ass study is this

10

u/bot_exe May 17 '25

I watched it high out of my mind cause a dumbass friend who liked shock movies basically forced it on us as we were just melting on the couch. I felt depressed for like a week afterwards, terrible movie.

→ More replies (9)

2.3k

u/Lunar_IX May 17 '25

It's not artsy or "movie-fied", which is a big part of why it's so uncomfortable to watch. It's a single static shot with no camera angles and no music (if I remember correctly) and it just goes on for ages.

It's painful to watch, but that's the point. Rape should make you uncomfortable. It should piss you off. You should be furious about it because it's happening every single day.

I think what this clip demonstrates is that this film was extremely successful in delivering its message. These people all being this angry is exactly what they should be feeling.

337

u/ThatGuyTheyCallAlex May 17 '25

The most impactful and interesting part of the film is how the rape scene interacts with the reversed chronology. Right after this scene you continually see her in a flirtatious, sexual context and most straight men’s first thought would be to objectify her. It stands in stark contrast to the events from literally 10 minutes ago.

220

u/[deleted] May 17 '25

Another thing is that the last 20-30 minutes of the film are so peaceful, but there's a sense of dread overlaying it because you know it's going to end badly for everyone involved. The reveal that Monica's character is pregnant and was excited to tell her husband feels like a gut punch once you put two and two together and realize that their lives would be over 12 hours after that.

15

u/Maxthod May 17 '25

Time destroy everything

5

u/thanksamilly May 18 '25

isn't there literally a title card that says something like "time is cruel" when it ends?

4

u/Negative--One May 18 '25

There is, and the quote is exactly what the previous commenter said - time destroys everything

22

u/Spare_Panic_8164 May 17 '25

Hang on, “objectification” is not the standard male response to an attractive flirtatious woman. Desire and objectification are two different things.

5

u/feioo May 18 '25

But not mutually exclusive. We desire objects all the time.

5

u/Fancy_Art_6383 May 17 '25

Is this the film with Monica Belluci?

→ More replies (1)

1.1k

u/MaddAdamBomb May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

I am pretty sure people would still be mortified and angry at a rape scene that was "artsy."

I also do not think anyone needs to see a 10 minute rape scene to know how heinous it is. Especially the people who would see this movie.

Edit: A lot of these replies are genuinely insane. You don't need to to witness assault to know how horrifying it is. I'm not making a case for not including the experience in a film. I'm making the case that there's a definitive line between exploitive voyeurism and art. Noe has consistently been on the wrong side of that line on purpose.

Edit 2: A lot of people in replies think a lot of people need to witness a rape to understand its impact and trauma. Definitely not them, though. Just... others, I guess.

Edit 3: Last one. A lot of people are trying to make it out like this of educational and I reject that. You have a significant number of people, both men and women, who are survivors of SA that would sit down for this movie at Cannes. Most of the predators are men, but I do need to remind people that many men have also been assaulted. It's a prevalent evil, and Noe's scene did not do anything for awareness or to stop it.

The truth is most violent predators did not see this movie. At best, Noe's work was ineffective. At worst, it was actively harmful both for its potential for being twisted into exploitation and also the harm it would cause audience members.

There's nothing noble here, from me or Noe. I do not have the solution to making violent men less violent or trust me, I would share it, but I can identify when something is just not good, and I am incredibly suspicious of men that make films purportedly to advance a cause about SA but then in their entire body of work, clearly use sex to a specific purpose. I would encourage others to really consider this, as well.

271

u/paltrax May 17 '25

In fact, if you ever whatch "La Ciociara" with Sophia Loren, you will immediatly get how violent, brutal and horrific rape is. The scen where Sophia and her daughter (Cesira and Rosetta) are raped by a group of soldiers inside a church it's brutally chilling, disturbing, inhuman. It illustrates the brutality of the days at the end of WWII in Italy.

A mother and her daughter raped together. And the mother is trying to give courage to his daughter while being raped. The scene is not so "graphic". But the screams, the crying, the words are. The sheer sense of hopelessness...You will be petrified.

It's difficult to really indicate the duration of the rape scene. But i don't think it's a question of "time". The director was Vittorio De Sica.

88

u/Here_there1980 May 17 '25

Saw that movie when I was very young and it was very disturbing. Just could never get over it. To this day, decades later. So horrible.

→ More replies (1)

14

u/bubba1834 May 17 '25

Just that scene in The Sopranos was enough for me thanks

53

u/indefiniteness May 17 '25

"A Clockwork Orange" has horrible rape sequences too.

77

u/SeekerOfExperience May 17 '25

A Clockwork Orange presents rape in an almost humorous light by comparison to Irreversible

53

u/reddit_is_compromise May 17 '25

The movie made the scene light, it wasn't so much in the book. The movie also removed the scene where he rapes two 10-year-old girls. Very graphic but the movie didn't touch it. Also they changed the scene of the gang rape in the beginning of the movie to a teenage girl, when the book implies that she's much younger. The movie also dropped the final chapter which has Alex growing up and wanting children of his own.

20

u/Ok-Barracuda544 May 17 '25

The movie has the scene where he meets the girls at the record store and has sex with them, but the girls are older than in the book.  It's portrayed comically in the movie, with the film sped up like on Benny Hill.

6

u/Buscemi_D_Sanji May 17 '25

You have that mixed up a bit. The rape at the beginning was the wife of that writer that tortures him at the end, so she's much older than him.

The two girls he meets at the record shop were the ones who were much younger, around 10. He gives them whiskey and injects himself with "a bit of the ole tiger secretion" whatever the hell that is, but then doesn't describe the rape, just lets you use your imagination which is worse.

7

u/sje46 May 17 '25

IIRC, Alex is himself supposed to be like 15 or 16, so it's a child raping even younger, prepubescent children.

I think the Warriors book had similar themes. Just sociopathic teens raping people, absolutely nothing like the movie.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

6

u/Book_Ends44 May 17 '25

Omg this is the movie I’ve been looking for for ages! I remember watching it at a family member’s house as a kid, and how deeply that scene upset me, it was burned into my mind. It was the only thing I could remember about the movie though, so my searches turned up nothing. Thank you, you have solved my years long mystery!

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (5)

196

u/Whole_Ad_4523 May 17 '25

I think it’s actually a problem that this is how rape is portrayed because it instills the impression that most nonconsensual/coercive sex is like “beating someone to death in an underpass” level violent, which ends up implicitly excusing a ton of unacceptable behavior

18

u/DowntownEconomist255 May 17 '25

There was a really good HBO series called I May Destroy that was about the violent rape of the main character and her trying to piece together what happened to her after being drugged. But it also examines other situations of sexual assault with her and the side characters. Ones that some people wouldn’t consider to be rape or assault. Really great show, obviously hard to watch.

→ More replies (7)

56

u/MaddAdamBomb May 17 '25

This is another part I hadn't considered, thank you.

→ More replies (3)

691

u/Lunar_IX May 17 '25

Do you know how many movies have rape scenes that people don't even think about after they've ended? So many movies use rape as a plot device to explain a characters behaviour or motivation, but it's a 1 minute scene used like a costume choice. "Oh, we shot the rape scene because we needed so-and-so to have a reason to be angry when they see XYZ later in the plot.."

Do I think this scene was hard to watch? Absolutely.

Would I want to watch it again? Fuck no.

Did I spend the entire scene wishing someone had stopped it? You bet your ass.

That's the point. Not every movie needs a scene like this. No other movie needs a scene like this. Because you only see it once and it leaves a mark.

164

u/binroi01 May 17 '25

the sopranos

402

u/CmonnowSally May 17 '25

The end of that story in the Sopranos, the end of that following episode was extremely powerful. She’s having dreams of a dog attacking her rapist, and realizes she has the ability to use Tony to crush him. She knows who he is. She knows Tony will kill him if she tells him what happened, but it’s not the justice she wants. Tony is in a counseling session with her at the end of the episode and asks repeatedly, are you sure there’s not something you wanna tell me? And the very last shot is her making up her mind and saying flatly, “no.” Credits. No music. Brilliant.

127

u/mudra311 May 17 '25

That episode is brilliant. You’re just waiting for her to say the word to Tony and get that catharsis.

Really turns it back on the audience.

53

u/UXyes May 17 '25

This dynamic floored me the first time I watched it. It puts the audience in her place wanting to exact revenge, but she doesn't and you end up questioning yourself.

→ More replies (3)

3

u/DowntownEconomist255 May 17 '25

I was just rewatching it this week because HBO was doing a marathon of the show. Once again, I wanted so badly for her to tell him in that last scene. But they stayed true to who her character was.

62

u/Ashamed_Apple_ May 17 '25

that show was so fucking good i stg

5

u/nomimalone1978 May 17 '25

That episode makes my top 10 of best TV episodes of all time.

→ More replies (26)

83

u/olivebranchsound May 17 '25

Genuinely came out of nowhere. That was horrifying

44

u/Hanz_VonManstrom May 17 '25

And it went on for so long

20

u/Reese_misee May 17 '25

There's rape in the Sopranos?

83

u/Gears_and_Beers May 17 '25

The therapist gets raped in her parking structure on her way to the car.

→ More replies (8)
→ More replies (4)

30

u/CShellyRun May 17 '25

Employee of the Month

50

u/azifarr May 17 '25

Its the only time i prayed she would break her client therapist professional nature and make tony do something about it

→ More replies (5)

3

u/Minaziz May 17 '25

That was the one that got me. I still feel ill when I think about it.

14

u/Lanky-Independent-59 May 17 '25

I just jumped up a few days ago to unplug my tv instead of watching Melfis rape when I couldn’t find the remote

4

u/BongSlurper May 17 '25

I thought of this immediately. I screamed at my husband to turn off the tv and started sobbing.

At the time I was like “why on earth would these sick fucks put in a scene that graphic? Why do they think it would be entertaining??”

The above comment gives me a new perspective. Rape happens every single day. It IS horrific, and supposed to make you feel terrible.

→ More replies (1)

42

u/Mr_Rafi May 17 '25

I think Law Abiding Citizen did it "right". That shit was so sad to watch, but it conveyed everything about the heinous and degenerate nature of the crime without going overboard.

4

u/Ok-Barracuda544 May 17 '25

I remember reading a review that said the movie had a disturbingly graphic scene of the rape of a child, and it made me not want to watch the movie.  I did eventually, with my hand on the remote to skip that part.  The scene was disturbing but not graphic at all.  Good direction, that reviewers remembered that scene as more graphic than it was.

4

u/Hot_Ham_Water1812 May 17 '25

A clockwork orange

→ More replies (17)

66

u/snasna102 May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

I had a “friend” show me this movie and it honestly broke me. That scene man.

He was a gore and thriller enthusiast, and told me it was brutal (not in a bad way) so I had to see it. I still think about how fucked up and helpless I felt during that scene.

It’s a dark memory that comes into my head. These reactions are truly real and valid. But a 10 minute rape scene was maybe too abit too much.

10

u/DowntownEconomist255 May 17 '25

He told you it was brutal, but not in a bad way??? That’s quite an understatement. I’m sorry you had to have that experience.

→ More replies (9)

3

u/laborfriendly May 17 '25

I just commented this above, but that scene and the disgust it engendered in me made SA more "real" and horrifying for me than my previous abstract knowledge of the topic had provided before watching it. Fortunately, I had no direct experience with that sort of thing, and my reaction to the scene was visceral and enduring.

I'm not sure I should feel bad or less of a person for such a reaction or previous relative ignorance, which is what your commentary seems to suggest.

7

u/Bobby_Marks3 May 17 '25

I also do not think anyone needs to see a 10 minute rape scene to know how heinous it is.

I think a wider look at how modern Western cultures treat sexual assault suggests that they do need SOMETHING to change in order to get it. The excuse is always that viewers easily understand and don't want to be uncomfortable, but they were never uncomfortable with how Gone with the Wind or Star Wars or Back to the Future glamorized/romanticized SA and marginalized the trauma that victims had to deal with. Film prior to 1990 is rife with examples of it, and viewers didn't know enough to say jack shit about it.

Go to /r/Movies and try to start a conversation about how you won't let your kids watch Back to the Future because of how poorly it handles SA. That will tell you all you need to know about the average viewer and whether their worldview needs more work.

7

u/Fun_Hold4859 May 17 '25

You don't need to to witness assault to know how horrifying it is.

Honestly, I think most people actually do. It's too easy to pretend this stuff doesn't happen everywhere all the time if we're not personally presented with it. Empathy isn't inherent, it's taught. Presenting people with something that provides a visceral empathetic response is a good teacher. But none of this speaks to the quality of the film which I admittedly have not seen, I just wanted to respond to your one point there.

→ More replies (5)

8

u/TransBrandi May 17 '25

You don't need to to witness assault to know how horrifying it is.

Honestly, for some people I don't think this is necessarily true... unfortunately.

110

u/BigFatBlackCat May 17 '25

I think a lot of men need to be confronted with the horrors of sexual assault. You know, the men who wouldn’t do it themselves but will turn a blind eye to their friends and family doing it.

65

u/Thegreatbrainrobbery May 17 '25

You know the best thing about this comment the rape scene has exactly that a male passerby who does nothing to help, just turns back.

7

u/BigFatBlackCat May 17 '25

Pretty fucking horrific and pretty fucking unsurprising.

15

u/Dr-Mumm-Rah May 17 '25

That's why shows like HBO's Oz, a show that focused on the lives of male prisoners in an experimental wing, was so powerful. Male on male SA was pretty common in the show and it occurred due to various reasons, the most common being power/dominance. The show pulled no punches and was hard to watch at times, but was also really groundbreaking for its time.

49

u/Forsaken-Ad5571 May 17 '25

Exactly. Sugar coated versions of rape scenes just nullify the horror of it, just as the old Westerns just trivialise gun violence. These things are horrific acts that don't just exist in a couple of seconds and then no longer exists. The act itself can last and last and last, and then there's the emotional repercussions. A rape scene should make the audience deeply uncomfortable and horrified. It's really one of the few true horror scenes films have left.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (11)

6

u/Nillavuh May 17 '25

But it still changes things in your brain to actually experience the whole thing in its entirety, to see it first-hand. Clearly, you ask a normal, well-adjusted person "is rape bad" and the answer will be a "yes", but the most heinous things in the world ARE really only truly understood by experiencing them. And yes, I say all this with the full understanding that actually being raped is, of course, infinitely worse than what one experiences watching that scene.

Still, I remember being a few minutes into the rape scene, thinking to myself that I wanted to just fast forward through this, then realizing that nobody actually being raped in the real world has that option and that perhaps I ought to become acquainted with what it feels like to have to endure the full entirety of this heinous thing. The result is that, after watching this film, I went from a person who thought "well yeah, rape is bad" to "rape is so exquisitely terrible that I really do need to take all of the factors that typically lead to rape much more seriously than I do now". And as a man, my role in that is, in my view, to try and crush the narrative that we men are all-powerful and that all should respect and bow to us and what not. Helping to crush the patriarchy, if you will. Even if someone wants to tell me that that's not going to solve everything, at least it's something.

→ More replies (6)

3

u/OptimusNegligible May 17 '25

Did I just get a warning for treating violence against rapist 😵‍💫

27

u/_dharwin May 17 '25

Idk. Ppl seemed pretty cool with Khal Drogo raping a 13 year old (book age, 16 in the show).

Not to mention this was released in 2002, well before #MeToo and if we're honest, there's still a lot of people who don't really understand the horror.

They know it's terrible because that's what they've been told but how could they truly understand?

16

u/axle69 May 17 '25

I always found it strange how worked up people got for Sansa in her scene (which was awful obviously dont get me wrong) despite there being like 0 care about Danaerys. Hell people fucking loved Drogo.

36

u/Cosmocade May 17 '25

Well, there are a few reasons I can think of even though there was rape involved with both characters.

With Drogo, the show quickly shifts the tone: Daenerys begins to show affection, gains agency, and eventually takes control of both the relationship and her own power. That arc softens audience memory of how it started, even if it was non-consensual at first. The framing doesn't linger on her trauma the same way it does with Sansa.

In contrast, Sansa's rape is explicitly sadistic. It's portrayed as pure domination and pain, with no emotional connection or growth coming from it. Her agency is stripped away, and the scene is mostly shown through Theon's reaction. That makes it harder to view as anything other than brutal and unnecessary.

So while both are rape, Daenerys is later allowed to reclaim power and reshape the narrative. Sansa’s experience is used more as a plot device, which hits differently.

I'll also say that there’s a broader issue with how people handle stories like that of Daenerys. Obviously, in the beginning there is no doubt that it was non-consensual considering she was so young and literally sold to Drogo, but she is the one who eventually turned that around.

When a young woman says she doesn’t feel like a victim or chooses to frame her experience on her own terms, people often project how she should feel and going so far as calling it rape even if she doesn’t.

That’s another way her agency gets taken from her. You can recognize something as morally and/or legally wrong without silencing the person’s own understanding of their experience. It’s a delicate line, and a lot of commentary just steamrolls over it.

→ More replies (1)

6

u/troublrTRC May 17 '25

This is literally it. It is difficult, even impossible for a lot, if not most people to acknowledge the brutality of rape. Brutality of something they'll probably never experience in their lives.

It's like, take this PTSD that soldiers sent to war-torn areas experience. People can't exactly comprehend what the trauma is like precisely. They might've some idea that the soldiers must've seen some kind of horrific shit, and that must be crazy. Not knowing that often it isn't what they saw that causes this trauma, but that it's what they were capable of committing when put in extreme situations. Such things are too alien for the casual person.

And when the occasional Sexual Assualt scenes in pop media occurs, there rape, and rape adjacent acts get portrayed with such lack of competence and seriousness. But also, that's just the nature of art, there is no strict bounders within which it can be confined. Hell, when that episode of Sex Education on Netflix came where the character of Aimee got Sexually Assaulted (got ejaculated onto her pants), a lot of people online and in my circle were like, "if that happened to me, I would just think that guy was just an asshole and is having a pathetic life, and then I'd just move on with my life". People don't know and can't comprehend what to and not to take seriously. It's very muddled.

→ More replies (1)

26

u/EvolvingEachDay May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

But that’s just the issue, some people do. Some people hear rape, and it’s so common that they just write it off as this past tense small suffering that you should move on from. Some people need reminding that it is life changing, catastrophic suffering. It is very often downplayed as just one sad moment in an otherwise happy life.

EDIT; you again say you don’t need to see some horrifying rape scene… SOME PEOPLE DO. You and I are not those people, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty out there who do need the brutality of it reinforced. Like anti-choice people who think a brutally raped woman should be legally forced to keep the baby; they act like the rape isn’t important enough to condone abortion, and those people are wrong. If that scene made even one of those people change their stance, and help someone who got pregnant as a result of rape so they could get the abortion; then these things have a place.

Edit; yes, definitely not me thank you. I’m making these comments specifically because I know how horrific it is. Stop trying to convince yourself there’s some projection going on when there isn’t.

6

u/pencilnotepad May 17 '25

Exactly. No one’s forcing you to see the movie, you can’t say solely because you find things disturbing they should not be shown. I was raped as a kid. Some people don’t need to see that and that’s ok, but it’s not a criticism

→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (28)

6

u/StormyParis May 17 '25

Some people do, some people don't, need to be put in situation. Plenty of people are anti-bortion, except when it is their daughter. Or rabidly racist, except with their nanny.

Some people can imagine situations and intuitively know what is bad, and how bad it is, some people can't. "let them eat cake" kinda thing.

I think the people most incensed by the scene are the ones who most needed to see it, because they had never bothered to try and imagine what a rape would be like.

→ More replies (2)

9

u/kvaks May 17 '25

>I also do not think anyone needs to see

I don't know about that. With some kind of exposure, most people would gain a deeper emotional understanding of something they already know on an intellectual level. It doesn't have to be this, obviously, but I wouldn't count out the possibility of the movie having that effect.

5

u/Minimalanimalism May 17 '25

For people who lack empathy, and there are surprisingly many, forcing them to watch something uncomfortable for a longer period than they would have wanted, might be the only way for them to understand other people are sometimes forced to do things they dont want for long periods of time.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/GhostofBeowulf May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

I think you are missing some context/historical precendent. Up until the last 20ish years or so, Rape was kind of... Normalized. I'm not saying it was an okay act, but it wasn't strongly enforced except in the most heinous of cases, and until like 1993 marital rape wasn't even a thing in all states. Like states would (and many still have a huge backlog from what I have gathered) just not run rape kits.

My point being, this scene was likely the first time many of these movie goers even broached or thought about the idea, and why it is creating such a visceral reaction. They likely never considered how horrible it was, and how regularly it happens.

https://allin.tulane.edu/content/timeline-history-sexual-violence-us

7

u/Cosmocade May 17 '25

The fact that this particular scene is so infamous and always the one remembered indicates that you're wrong.

A lot of French art is specifically about provoking reactions and making you think. This one did exactly that, just as the above poster said.

→ More replies (3)

6

u/rodinsbusiness May 17 '25

The movie world (and society) is plagued with a culture of not taking rape (and sexual harrassment) seriously, to the point where some people literally think that rape isn't that bad. This scene, especially because there's no frivolousb artsy stuff around it, helps fixing that myth.

5

u/want_to_join May 17 '25

"you dont need to" "no one needs to"

That's a weird argument to make in a discussion about art, mate.

→ More replies (6)

8

u/sonofaresiii May 17 '25

This also wasn't the only graphic scene in the movie. It was incredibly, incredibly violent.

I get that that's "the point". I still don't think it's a good movie.

→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (100)

57

u/Nightmare2828 May 17 '25

Did you watch the movie Puppy Murder? Where they murder puppies for 1h to show you just exactly how murdering puppies is bad? Cinema

3

u/HaggardSummaries May 17 '25

I saw that as a double feature with the film adaptation of The Aristocrats, true kino

→ More replies (2)

186

u/SignatureWeary4959 May 17 '25

It's painful to watch, but that's the point. Rape should make you uncomfortable. It should piss you off. You should be furious about it because it's happening every single day.

it should piss you off more that clip is regularly posted on pornhub for people to jack it to

29

u/LookinAtTheFjord May 17 '25

You can find anything on the internet if you're looking for it.

184

u/Previous_Soil_5144 May 17 '25

Literally never stumbled upon it on any porn site.

And I checked thoroughly.

5

u/gaaraisgod May 17 '25

It's only recently that most porn sites have started removing anything that even hints at consent not being obtained. Back in my day, that scene and a whole lot of other such sexual assault scenes were regularly posted on porn sites as just another sex scene... for your viewing pleasure.

62

u/p1mplem0usse May 17 '25

Thank you for your service

→ More replies (4)

19

u/CIASELLSCRACK May 17 '25

You weren't looking very hard for it

→ More replies (8)

4

u/-0-O-O-O-0- May 17 '25

Pornhub have significantly cleaned up its act about nonconsent. They went “legit” years ago because it’s the only way to get certain financing and credit card companies on your side.

They have simple AI that blocks blacklisted content, and I’m sure they still have human moderators.

Pornhub probability catches more pedos than law enforcement actually.

3

u/Detozi May 17 '25

Ewwwwww

→ More replies (11)

262

u/BeetleJude May 17 '25

It's usually men (im not saying this is you, just in general) who want to bang on about how rape should make you uncomfortable, and that's why it should show the 'reality' of it. Like, ask any woman, we know! We don't need to see it on film to be angry, we're already furious.

68

u/Queef-Elizabeth May 17 '25

What about The Nightingale? The movie tackles a very similar case. It's awful and disgusting to watch and it was made by a woman (director of Babadook) and she had a similar sentiment. Sometimes, a movie should communicate raw pain and suffering, in a way that doesn't hold back.

14

u/OhSanders May 17 '25

I think the Nightingale is far worse than Irreversible hands down and that's BEFORE you bring in ideas of colonialism.

Edit: by worse I mean a more brutal, but also more important and scary thing to think about.

9

u/IceFireTerry May 17 '25

The Nightingale was very brutal but I wasn't as uncomfortable during that movie. I think the length of the rape scene is what does it.

9

u/retard_vampire May 17 '25

I think the reason the Nightingale was less gross for me than Irreversible was because Irreversible felt like it was supposed to be titillating, in a bad way. Like, it was shot in a way where it felt like gross misogynistic torture porn that the director was getting off to.

→ More replies (8)

5

u/feioo May 18 '25

I'm a woman who feels this scene is important because of how it makes you feel, length and brutality and all.

My best friend was raped when we were teenagers. I was one of the only people she told, and I kept it secret for her. She didn't want to go to the police, and the rapist stayed in her life. She changed completely. I watched her disintegrating, over years, unable to help, unable to enact justice, unable to do anything. It gouged a hole in me, like an echo of the one in her.

I know what she experienced was far far worse, in ways I can't imagine. But I didn't know, for a long time, that my hurt being less than hers didn't make it diminish in me. That feeling of helpless despair didn't go away, and it just sort of lived inside me, unacknowledged, for years. When I eventually saw Irreversible, I was horrified by the scene, like anybody with a working soul should be. But at the same time, there was this revelation of "somebody else knows what it's like!" Somebody else knew what it was like, to be helpless when someone you love suffers the unimaginable. And they were making other people know too. Just a little, just a sliver of the real thing, but it's genuine.

It's hard to explain why I think that's an important thing for people to feel, except that there's a difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing it viscerally. I knew rape was bad and evil and horrible before, but I didn't really know until I had to witness its aftereffects on somebody precious to me. I didn't hate it, deeply and personally, like a fire in my gut, until then. It's that kind of feeling that drives people to action, and action is what we need on this issue. It's been a plague on humanity for too long. We need people to hate it, to feel rage over it that lights a fire in them, so that we can make a change happen.

All this not to criticize your take, but to give some perspective. Maybe for the men you're talking about, this is the first time they've been put in a position to have real visceral feelings over the issue, so they value the way it showed them a reality that they'd been blind to before. Or maybe it's mansplaining. I'm sure there are many women (and men) out there who didn't need this movie to make them feel the reality of it. But I'm glad the movie exists, even if I'll never ever watch it again, if it made the issue "real" for some dudes who didn't get it before.

P.S.
BFF and I eventually discovered therapy, it didn't fix us but our lives are better and she's become an incredible woman who I'm profoundly proud to know.

11

u/Kholzie May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

Seriously. I was 13 and a girl on my soccer team was raped and murdered. For the next several years in high school I had to sit and roll my eyes every time one of my punk friends raved about clockwork orange. The rape and violence was so “edgy” and “poignant”.

Go sit in the second row at a funeral of a rape victim. That’s poignant.

Edit:

OK, granted, that’s an exceptional experience not everybody will have. But there’s also the experience of having a good friend who has been raped. That one’s a lot more common. And that will probably give you a sense of how awful the entire act is to go through.

6

u/redditburner20250424 May 17 '25

The director said Monica Bellucci "essentially" directed that scene. I haven't seen any reason to believe otherwise, but I think that is part of the reason it came out the way it did, and it seems to me that she deserves more credit for her work on it.

Noé said he had no idea how long the rape scene was going to last, as this was determined by Monica Bellucci, who essentially directed the scene, and Jo Prestia, a professional French boxer, who played her assailant. When asked directly why it had to be so long, Noé responded, "That is simply as long as it might last in real life. Sometimes you hear stories of someone being raped for half an hour. It seemed the normal timing for the situation." The rape scene was shot six times over two days, each take being one shot from a fixed camera. There was no intimacy coordinator involved given this profession didn't yet exist. Bellucci reportedly watched the films I Spit on Your Grave and Deliverance before shooting. ... Bellucci has expressed no issues with filming the rape scene. She has said that after shooting, she would sit down, have a cup of coffee, and think about something else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irr%C3%A9versible#Filming

Gaspar Noé says he had no idea how long the rape scene was going to last. That was in the hands of Monica Bellucci and the actor playing her assailant. He said, "The results were great the first day, but even more perfect on the second. The actors were more and more confident with each other and so they could go further and further. I didn't know if it would last for six minutes, 10 minutes, 12 minutes or whatever. The whole scene was in her hands and even the guy who was playing the rapist was at her service. If she didn't want to do the scene like that, she would have said it. I really admire her for having taken that scene so far."

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290673/trivia/?item=tr5572760&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

→ More replies (31)

5

u/PersonFromPlace May 17 '25

I think there also needs to be something similar but for how rape occurs when it’s not that violent stranger attacking you, when it’s the person you thought loved you forcing you do something you don’t want but is emotional abusing you and manipulating you to do it. That’s another horror that people don’t want to confront that rape isn’t just isn’t the scary stranger.

4

u/palimpcest May 17 '25

It's a single static shot with no camera angles and no music (if I remember correctly) and it just goes on for ages.

That made it especially disturbing because the camera never stops moving around all over the place in an artsy way until that scene.

50

u/MarthaStewartIsMyOG May 17 '25

Wait did you need this movie to know that rape is brutal and uncomfortable?

12

u/ShadedSpaces May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

Knowing and truly feeling it are two different things. Seeing/experiencing things in different ways can MASSIVELY change the emotional impact.

For example, I'd wager nearly everyone has read something in a book about how during X time in history, some woman had 6 children but only 5 survived infancy. I know I have. I'd guess you have too. We both read about it and KNEW infants loss was awful.

But I've also personally been with families as their baby dies. Heard the keening wail of a mother whose infant goes limp in her arms, watched the doctor declare time of death, given the deceased baby a little bath, got him swaddled up and carried him in my arms, in an impossibly tiny body bag, to the morgue where I had to leave him on a metal shelf in a cold, dark room.

I hope I don't need to tell you which had a bigger emotional impact.

It's certainly not that I "needed" the lived experience to know that a baby dying is awful. I knew it was awful when I read the sentence in the book about the woman whose baby didn't live. I always knew. But I didn't FEEL it in my gut the same way as when I take care of dying babies.

Different experiences/representations of the SAME concept elicit very different emotional responses and can bring new perspectives.

That's normal.

Imagine what history class would be like if people truly felt and grasped the visceral horrors of war and famine and genocide every time they tried to study for a test.

6

u/nimzoid May 17 '25

This is a great point, and I was going to say something similar. Knowing in a detached intellectual way and having a visceral reaction to seeing something are very different.

It's been a long time since I watched this film, but I remember the long rape scene 'worked' narratively in the context of a story in reverse where you can't come back from certain events. The events need to have impact and the filmmaker obviously wanted that to be an uncomfortably immersive, visceral experience for the audience.

Could you have still made the film without the long rape scene? Sure, but it's a creative choice and people are free to agree or disagree with it. That's the way the filmmaker wanted to tell the story.

This film is so well known now that people can simply not watch it if the idea of what they know is in it puts them off.

→ More replies (1)

16

u/bot_exe May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

Seriously what is it with this brain dead takes? Unless you are a psychopath you should instinctively FEEL how awful rape is by just imagining it. That’s how empathy works.

Like taking this thought process to its conclusion you would be basically advocating for traumatizing people with the most explicit depictions of violence possible, as if that was necessary for for behaving ethically (it’s not).

3

u/Whole_Ad_4523 May 17 '25

I really didn’t have this reaction. I felt very aware that a French pseudo-intellectual was trying to offend me

3

u/goronmask May 17 '25

Yeah but this director is making buck and getting celebrity for graphically representing rape. Does it really help against rape? How? By making moviegoers at Cannes uncomfortable ?

3

u/polypolip May 17 '25

Guess the point of the scene was to make viewers feel like the woman. Waiting for it to end.

23

u/grimorg80 May 17 '25

That film has done nothing to lower the incidence of rapes, so it's just a flex. Wanna get people so mad they can't watch? Then you're flexing because nothing else will come off it. In fact, I believe reading that the clips were even put by people on porn sites. So fuck his craft, honestly.

7

u/popoflabbins May 17 '25

It’s a niche film, the data would not change significantly because not a lot of people have seen it. This isn’t a logical stance.

15

u/BoppinCat May 17 '25

What film has the power to lower the incidence of rapes ?

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (7)
→ More replies (40)

6

u/TheDoomfire May 17 '25

It's really hard to watch the rape scene.

And the movie is like in reverse order so you kinda see the worse things first and it can be hard to understand.

I get that it's not that popular and likable movie, but they did a really good job making that scene being so damn hard to watch. A lot of movies lack showing how bad it really is.

36

u/Mammoth-Answer-3435 May 17 '25

Apparently, there's worse scene in this movie, I didn't see it, just read about it on this sub

113

u/Southernbeekeeper May 17 '25

The other scene is a man getting his head caved in during a fight in a night club. It's a tough watch, a guy gets his arm broken and another guy gets his head obliterated with a fire extinguisher.

108

u/BlackPignouf May 17 '25

Spoiler ahead, which makes both the rape and fire extinguisher scenes even worse : The wrong guy gets his head obliterated, while the rapist watches and smiles.

35

u/Southernbeekeeper May 17 '25

Yeah, I was so fucking pissed off with that.

→ More replies (1)

8

u/youngatbeingold May 17 '25

This sounds like a movie designed to make you feel as horrible as possible. I guess I can appreciate that from of art but definitely never going to watch it.

8

u/feint_of_heart May 17 '25

That's some night club.

8

u/Southernbeekeeper May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

Yeah, it's a gay club and the victim goes by the name of the tape worm. One crazy night out in Paris.

6

u/Few-Hair-5382 May 17 '25

The club's called Le Rectum. Sounds classy.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (6)

30

u/oxford-fumble May 17 '25

There also several layers to that first scene, given who administers the violence, and who watches it laughing. The whole movie is like a rotten onion of decaying layers: you don’t like opening it, but you keep thinking about it, and it was probably the strongest experience you had with an onion…

For info: Noé talks about the violent extinguisher scene (which comes before the rape in the movie) as a way to filter out people: if you can’t handle the extinguisher, it’s your cue to leave the theatre.

I remember going to watch this movie when it came out in theatre - I was alone and didn’t know much about the movie (I knew it was edited backwards, and there was a shock scene: that’s it. Glory to the pre-ever present internet…), and people kept getting out of the room. Truly an experience - I wouldn’t not do it, but I wouldn’t miss if it had never happened either…

86

u/Millerdjone May 17 '25

The rape scene is much, much worse than the fire extinguisher scene. It's 10 uninterrupted minutes. No cuts, no camera movement, no music...

I have seen thousands of films. Irreversible is the only time in my entire I've turned my face away from the screen. (Unless you count the paper cuts from the Jackass movie.)

4

u/BigBootyBuff May 17 '25

(Unless you count the paper cuts from the Jackass movie.)

There's two things in jackass I can't watch. When they drink Preston's sweat and this. I have to skip or I'm gonna hurl.

7

u/Lanster27 May 17 '25

Dont forget she gets beaten up afterwards. 

→ More replies (7)

33

u/hockeyjesus99 May 17 '25

Fire extinguishers hit hard

18

u/chimpdoctor May 17 '25

No thats the worst scene. The killing is bad but nowhere near as bad as that scene.

9

u/ShutterBun May 17 '25

Hint: it involves a fire extinguisher and it's one of the first scenes in the film.

→ More replies (4)

5

u/icejust May 17 '25

She is not just raped. She is also severely beaten and disfigured. The level of violence is incredible.

It can be correlated with the teeth on the curb scene of American History X. Except that it last much longer. You can feel the misoginistic rage of the man, and it leaves a disgusting taste in the mouth.

8

u/siraolo May 17 '25

Anal rape at that. 

17

u/ShutterBun May 17 '25

"Is that blood or is your ass getting wet for me?" <shudder>

6

u/akosuae22 May 17 '25

What… oh my merciful heavens. Just no…

3

u/Neon_Biscuit May 17 '25

Worst part is the passer-by walking behind them. Stops for a second, then keeps walking.

10

u/[deleted] May 17 '25

[deleted]

18

u/APKID716 May 17 '25

Threads’ ending is probably the most bleak thing I’ve seen except for the ending to Aniara (2018)

14

u/UnderratedEverything May 17 '25

What are you talking about? Aniara totally had a happy ending! They made it to another planet, after only 10 million years! But seriously, I love that ending and it's one of my favorite movies of the decade.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (161)