As the Venice Film Festival closes in on its final days we should probably mention that controversial filmmaker Gaspar Noe is there to screen a new cut of his film 2002 film “Irreversible,” but told in chronological order.
Directed by Noe, Irreversible is such an incendiary statement that even the strong-stomached might not be able to fully watch it. Roger Ebert once said that it was “a movie so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable.” The movie features a graphic, single-take nine and a half minute rape scene, featuring Italian superstar Monica Bellucci, that had people enraged at Noe. It wasn’t just the rape scene, but other violent acts that were depicted as well. In one particularly brutal scene, one man bludgeons another to death with a fire extinguisher, crushing his skull, and Noe refuses to cut away. There are no limits to what can be depicted in cinema, and Noe wanted to make sure you remembered that.
Of course, Noe was quick to assure fans that the version of “Irreversible” that debuted 17 years ago “remains both the director’s cut and the real version of the film.”
He added, “This new cut is another film.”
Think of this latest cut akin to Christopher Nolan deciding to present a new cut of “Memento,” but with the story being told in chronological order instead of backwards. That’s what Noe has done here, having created the cut for a Blu-Ray special edition of the movie only to have then realized it was a rather strong new cut worthy of an actual release.
“In this clockwise cut, a few passages without dialogues created lulls in the action and it is for reasons of rhythm alone, not any kind of censorship, that they have been removed, making this version five minutes shorter than the original,” Noe explained.
Now does mention that this latest version is completely different in tone and scope to the original film:
“Putting the scenes in clockwise order makes it easier to identify with the characters and understand the tale unfolding. The same story is no longer a tragedy, this time it is a drama that brings out the psychology of the characters and the mechanisms that lead some of them to a murderous barbarity,” said Noe. “While ‘Irreversible’ has sometimes been wrongly perceived as a ‘rape and revenge’ B movie, here the deadly outcome is all the more depressing. The film can be more easily seen as a fable on the contagion of barbarity and the command of the reptilian brain over the rational mind.”
He continued, “Removing the anti-clockwise structure, a mentally invasive formal concept, brings out the actors’ performances that much more forcefully. The gentleness or violence of the situations and the emotional states of the characters become even more apparent”
There is currently no release date for “Irreversible – Straight Cut” but a theatrical roll-out is being planned.
The timing is interesting. The settlement talks will occur nearly a month after the $7 million-per-day ticking fee start tabulating, which puts real pressure on Paramount to get this done.