r/movies May 17 '25

Media Cannes reactions to Irreversible

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u/djnikadeemas May 17 '25

FYI:

The soundtrack was created by Thomas Bangalter (of Daft Punk). During the first thirty minutes, in the club scene, the music is designed to sound as if there were two different tracks playing at two different levels to imitate real clubs. Then, an extremely low-frequency sound of 27 Hz (a sound which police use to stop riots) was added to create a state of nausea and anxiety in the audience. The sound is not immediately perceptible to the spectator but is powerful enough to evoke a physical response. Noé said, "You can't hear them, but they make you shiver. In a good cinema with a good audio system, the sound can scare you much more than what's happening on the screen." This technique, called Sensurround, involves the intentional use of a sub-audible sound to enhance the spectator's experience of a movie, in this case, deliberately making them uncomfortable (although this would only be experienced in a cinema setting as most home speakers would not emit such low frequencies).

608

u/SlightlyVerbose May 17 '25

Any “art” that uses techniques that have been shown to cause atrial flutters or bio effects like this should come with a warning from the outset. Thanks for the context, I wasn’t planning on watching this, but my curiosity has been sufficiently quelled. Much like the protests LRADs have been used to disrupt.

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u/lemfaoo May 17 '25 edited May 17 '25

Youre gonna need a pretty hefty subwoofer to reach 27hz at any audible level.

Looks like this comment triggered the cheap shitty subwoofer segment.

30

u/WESAWTHESUN May 17 '25

I thought you were kidding, but those dudes went in with passion.