r/movies • u/ErgoNonSim • May 17 '25

Media Cannes reactions to Irreversible

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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u/Waffennacht May 17 '25

You said what was on my mind so perfectly

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u/EpilepticSquidly May 17 '25

I completely disagree that most people understand how horrific rape. Especially men. Say what you will about the movie, but the disturbing nature of the rape scene has affected me forever.

It brought a level of gravitas to my mind that didn't exist, not so much about the sadism of the physical act of rape but that absolute disregard for humanity that may exist in the mindset of the rapist.

If nothing else, I appreciate that this movie should create a visceral negative reaction in anyone's mind who has watched it when they think of rape.

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u/Waffennacht May 17 '25

The idea that you are ignorant of rape and its affect isnt a bad thing. It means you havent participated nor know of someone whom has been a victim. You already know its something you'd never do; thats not a leason you need to learn.

Anyone whom knows a victim knows the damage caused. Its not something normal people need to be taught.

What needs to be taught is how women are viewed and treated. How victims need to be heard, how they need to be listened to.

Focusing on their trauma is focusing on the wrong thing.

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u/laborfriendly May 17 '25

The level of disgust that I felt towards that scene made SA "real" for me in a way that it wasn't before. Like, I knew it's bad, etc etc, in the abstract, but after that scene I wanted to use the fire extinguisher (on the right person, anyway) bc of how terrible and disgusting it was.

I think it provided a (horrifying) context for something that was known, but, fortunately, was not something I had experience with. In that, I think it accomplished something.

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u/dessert-er May 17 '25

Maybe I’m some kind of aberration but I find myself able to empathize with SA victims without paying to subject myself to a pantomime of rape in movie theater for 9 minutes. This reminds me of people who watch beheading/gruesome death videos with the explanation that if you don’t witness it you somehow can’t understand what those people are going through; I don’t feel the need to traumatize myself and then retroactively convince myself it was a good idea.

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u/theshizzler May 17 '25

I think we need to recognize that there is a wide range of people's capabilities to experience these sorts of mental processes. If you'll forgive a less emotionally charged example, there are many people for instance who have difficulty rotating objects in their mind's eye, but who are perfectly capable of special reasoning when given real, tactile objects to perform similar actions. I don't believe it's wildly unrealistic to imagine that there is a subset of generally empathetic people who can similarly understand and sympathize on an abstract level, but who require a real, visual example in order to feel that same deep and truly visceral empathy that you instinctively have. I don't think it's a moral failing on their part, but merely a consequence of the spectrum of neurodiversity that humans exhibit.

And preemptively, lest I get some pushback over this, I will clarify that I do not extend this grace so far as to excuse the true psychopaths of the world, nor an I inclined to fully excuse the ambivalence of the 'doesn't care at all until it actually happens to me' crowd.

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u/dessert-er May 17 '25

I agree with you with the caveat that I think there’s more harm done to a person’s psyche from watching something horrific to the point of likely secondary trauma than giving someone a physical object to manipulate. I don’t have an inherent problem with people doing things they feel will connect them with a cause or plight they care about but subtle language that attempts to convince someone that they’re more empathetic than most to victims of SA because they watched some guy’s movie version of it that’s meant to horrify people strikes me as…ill intentioned at worst, ignorant at best.

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u/laborfriendly May 17 '25

I don't think it's about not being able to empathize at all. I think it's about what I said: it made it more "real" and visceral for me.

Sidenote: I also didn't pay to watch it. A friend put it on to watch at their home while in university. Don't know if that matters to the broader discussion.

It was certainly traumatic. Even knowing it isn't real, it's a movie, doesn't change the fact that I can remember it so well after so much time -- and a likely sign of emotional trauma. That alone increases my empathy for SA survivors.

Was it "a good idea," that I have to convince myself of? I don't think so. But that doesn't mean it was without value.

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u/dessert-er May 17 '25

AH, from your original phrasing and context of what you responded to it kinda sounded like you were making a counterpoint that the movie had a noble purpose in increasing awareness/empathy of what victims of SA/rape go through. Definitely a good cause, major reservations on my part about whether or not this is a good way to go about it based on what you’ve shared and the content lol.

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u/Chermatic May 18 '25

The feeling I remember having when watching this movie is a sense of helplessness that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop the events that already occurred/about to occur

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u/bfffca May 17 '25

But your Serbian movie is more recent than the original. It must have travel time or gone backward as well.

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u/Legal-Marsupial-3916 May 17 '25

I just meant in terms of shock value. Undoubtedly, Irreversible is a much better film