Irreversible (Gaspar Noé) Blu-ray, Australia

Karlin

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I remember watching this in an Edinburgh cinema and it blew me away. I also remeber several people walking out and me thinking "What the fudge were you expecting? Don't let the door hit your arse".

Anyhoo, it's popped up on Blu-ray in Australia from Accent Film Entertainment

Disc review Not sure how accurate that is as I see some people have said it's 1080i -either way it looks like a vast improvement to the DVD. Not sure why it's not listed in more places but JB-HiFi say it's an "exclusive". About £16 delivered.


I see there's a placeholder for a UK DVD on Amazon for October 2014 from a company called Spirit Entertainment. Never heard of them.
 
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Yeah I bought it on DVD but could never bring myself to watch it again, the rape scene is way to disturbing for me, but it is cutting edge film making by Mr Noe!
 
I have seen it once before and thought it was a good film, albeit with a shockingly graphic way of expressing the story.

After wwtching it recently, I felt physically sick watching the scene in the club and then watching the rape scene. To be fair I think it is more to do with the face bashing, it really makes my stomach turn.
 
I remember watching this in an Edinburgh cinema and it blew me away. I also remeber several people walking out and me thinking "What the **** were you expecting? Don't let the door hit your arse".

Uh. Maybe they had a slight objection to the massively homophobic subtext. It's not even a subtext, it's right in your face.
 
Just ordered this. Only £14.90 including delivery from Australia.
 
Subtext in a Noé film? How VERY dare he!

It's a film I don't care about subtext it's either very well done or it's not. I seen no such subtext either apart from the usual human fleeting thoughts about abuse, love, sex and violence. People maybe adding their own baggage to the film because my memory of its release was people saying all sorts of nonsense. Not sure why so many people walked out or turned it off either just don't go to see it. Noé wants to disturb the viewer this is clear from the way he even uses text on his posters. He's basically saying Don't come and see my films and fudge off".

I like that. We need more of it.
 
Because Cassell's character is coming out with some abusive language to the gay men in the club (albeit while he is completely off his head following certain traumatic events) doesn't mean the film has a homophobic agenda or subtext. The character is simply being an abusive a...hole.
 
So, a gay club called Le Rectum (nice). Populated by subhuman degenerates who will gladly watch a guy get his head smashed in and not lift a finger to help. And a rapist who is... gay. But rapes women.

It's the most adolescent, juvenile form of provocation and doesn't just border on homophobia, it invades it and sets up a demilitarised zone.
 
It sounds like you were offended by the film, Heavens to betsy! -that doesn't make it a bad film or homophobic, pro-rape, pro-violence or whatever.

Again, we're back to the old chestnut of why the hell did you go in the first place (that's entirely rhetorical)? Noé rings all sorts of alarm bells from his trailer soundtracks to -as I said- the text & fonts used on point of sale and posters -it is his intention to disturb (I'm sure he'd be shocked if people were offended. His DVDs in France and the USA even have WARNING/ATTENTION as part of the artwork (also handy to promote the film of course!).

Anyway, he's not for everyone and I can't think of too many people who like his work but I love him to bits because he pushes cinema and he made me look at many more films from around the world. They guy's obviously fudgeed up but I like it.

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Get out of the cinema. Now.
 
There's a difference between being provocative and being prejudiced . Point me towards ANYTHING in Irreversible that deconstructs this or dissects the blatant homophobia onscreen. You can't, because it doesn't. Anything gay is portrayed in absolutely negative terms (even featuring a gay club that's like a vision of Hell, 'it stinks of **** in here' etc).

Saying Noe is an enfant terrible and you should know what to expect before you go in is a juvenile, reductivist argument. ANYONE can be offensive. It's not hard. What's the point if you're not saying anything, even worse if all you're doing is vomiting up hoary old prejudice.
 
...but he's not offensive. You are offended.

That's your problem.

Starting to think we watched 2 different films as you've completely lost me as it's the first time I've heard such an opinion about parts of the film [as you perceived it].

Maybe good if you don't buy the Blu-ray and not just because it's 1080i :D
 
Geez, Karlin you need to calm down. Anephric is stating an opinion, he doesn't need you to tell him what his problem is.

To expand what I said earlier, the film is fantastic with respect to the way it tells its story. To me it was a new way of telling a story (although there is probably some obscure art house film from the seventies some random film fanatic can tell me did it first). What would have been a good story was made better for me by the final scenes that chronologically would have been at the beginning. It had a much bigger impact with me that way.

I also stated I didn't need to watch it again. I was not offended by the scene in the club, I just found it wholly unnecessary gore porn that detracted from an otherwise quality film. Being that graphic doesn't add anything to the story, but I am sure it generated a lot more interest in the film through word of mouth, a cynic might argue that is what the director wanted.
 
...but he's not offensive. You are offended.

That's your problem.

Starting to think we watched 2 different films as you've completely lost me as it's the first time I've heard such an opinion about parts of the film.

Read some reviews. It's not a new train of thought.

I don't have a problem with something being challenging or offensive, if it's offending something or someone that needs a bit of trenchant criticism. What's Noe 'challenging' in this? The perception that gay people are just like you and me and instead should be perceived like it's still the 70s and they're a bunch of degenerates?
 
Actually Noe appears in the club masterbating , he uses this to demonstrate he is not above the homosexuals.
 
Wow. Deep.
 
Actually Noe appears in the club masterbating , he uses this to demonstrate he is not above the homosexuals.

It's masturbating.

I admired the chances people took with the film -producer, financier and Cassel. I'm sure they all knew they were making something nasty and provocative -unless Noé did a Caligula and did 60mins of reshoots and edited it in his dungeon.

And I'm serious I really didn't catch the homophobe angle at the time, maybe it was drowned out and shovelled into my mind skip with all the other brouhaha from the keyboard censors at the time. I really don't recall.

Either way, Noé is quite mad so this may be an excuse for his greatness. I can recall leaving the cinema after watching Seul contre tous and feeling like I'd vsitied the hellish vision of that character. Such human horror.
 
Well Anephric, let me give you a gay man's perspective on the film. It has never once occurred to me in all the times that I have watched the film, that there was even a whiff of homophobia, sub-textual or otherwise. Not one bit. NEWSFLASH! Gay people can be violent and nasty too! :eek:

Le Rectum is not just a gay club, it's a gay S&M club. Of course it's like a "vision of hell". What did you expect? Laura Ashley prints and people sipping tea?

And you're shocked that the denizens of it are bad people who are turned on by violence? What should they have been doing to make it less "homophobic"? Exchanging knitting patterns and recipes perhaps?
 
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It's masturbating.

I admired the chances people took with the film -producer, financier and Cassel. I'm sure they all knew they were making something nasty and provocative -unless Noé did a Caligula and did 60mins of reshoots and edited it in his dungeon.

And I'm serious I really didn't catch the homophobe angle at the time, maybe it was drowned out and shovelled into my mind skip with all the other brouhaha from the keyboard censors at the time. I really don't recall.

Either way, Noé is quite mad so this may be an excuse for his greatness. I can recall leaving the cinema after watching Seul contre tous and feeling like I'd vsitied the hellish vision of that character. Such human horror.
It's ****ing whatever way you want to spell it!
 
What should they have been doing to make it less "homophobic"? Exchanging knitting patterns and recipes perhaps?

You weren't offended, plenty of gay people were (even critics that otherwise defended the film). You can't say Noe's just being generally misanthropic because the heterosexual characters are all fully realised: Noe uses homosexuality as a convenient 'Otherness' and then proceeds to instil every single negative characteristic he can possibly think of into it.

I'm not going to argue this point anymore. Enjoy the film!
 
Of course the heterosexual characters are all fully realised ("all" being three of them), because they are focused on for practically the entire duration of the film. There isn't a gay character in that club that is focused on for more than a few seconds in the film, so how can you expect them to be "fully realised"?

I'm puzzled at your statement...

"You weren't offended, plenty of gay people were (even critics that otherwise defended the film)."

How did you know the sexuality of the critics when you read the reviews?

I don't personally know a single gay person that was offended by this film or who even detected a whiff of homophobia. Not one. I also followed this film closely at the time of release and read a multitude of reviews, including a few in the gay press, and none of those complained of homophobia. Believe me I'd have remembered and that would have been firmly in mind when I viewed the film.

Can you point me to any news items or reviews that would indicate "plenty of gay people" being offended by the film, as I'd be interested in reading them?

Incidentally, while looking back on some reviews of the film, I've stumbled on three very negative reviews, where in all three cases each critic is labouring under the misapprehension that the rapist is the man murdered in the nightclub. They're reliable reviewers, aren't they?
 
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I said I wasn't going to get into tit-for-tats, but I trust Robin Wood is good enough for you.

You can Google the rest yourself, it's not too hard.
 

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