Irreversible
Nebraska is a state delusional of its own importance. We’re a small cavity of space hollowed out in the side of a mountain, with a small, thriving ecosystem and miles of wide open farmfields. We don’t usually get films here, let alone anything worth seeing. We have two indie theaters – small, complacent, almost desolate buildings with a few hanging strings and some film posters. IRREVERSIBLE played at one such theater on Friday night. I knew I had to be there.
The film started at midnight (they play cult films at midnight), and I arrived about 11:50. There was one other person there, sitting somewhere in the middle. The next ten minutes were filled with silence – it’s one of those theaters that refuses to play music in the lobby, if only to exaggerate their timely aging. Around 11:58, a stout couple walked in with a bag of popcorn and sat somewhere off the right of me. I knew that within the hour, they’d be gone. A group of girls walked in (by group, i mean two) and sat in front of me. Yeah, they’d probably be gone too.
There’s an eloquence and calming demeanor about this theater that’s inexplicable. I can’t quite describe its gestures. It’s a rundown, 50′s type place with one screen. They’ve got an amazing sound system and a pretty nice screen, complimented by its aging, tearing seats smothered in years of abuse. They cater to the indie crowd, unfortunately, by playing obvious cult classics night after night with the occasional gem. Neverthless, it’s a honey pot of cinematic glorification, and I return to that which is sweet.
The film started promptly at midnight. I don’t want to bother describing the films plot, but that which is of importance. That which defines cinema. They jacked the volume up, and I settled in for roughly two hours of cerebral ecstasy. The sound system roared to life as the title slowly clambered onto the screen, the distant humming and bassy reverb shaking the theater. This is how such films are meant to be viewed. As most of you know, the first hour or so is arguably the films finest and most intense. The sounds, the visuals, the agonizing depiction of time, tossed up in a blistering collage of homosexuality, rape, and love. There’s something to be said about the films contemplative aesthetics. Specifically, the employment of a nauseating 28Hz signal and fragmented, jittery cinematography, quasi handheld. The film begins where I STAND ALONE left off, exhaustingly employing the disembodied camera angels, bright, washed out lights and 28Hz humming. This humming is unbelievably essential to the films nauseating power. Sound is inescapable. We can turn our eyes away at sights of disgust, but to escape the audible torture one must leave the theater, forfeiting their draw into the world Noe’s crafted. My love for the audible madness is due in part to my taste in music. nothing is more rewarding than losing yourself in the noisey, dreamy sensation of immense, reverb-ridden wall-of-sounds. The drone. Finding beauty in endless recursion. Noe employs this rhythmic repetition both in terms of the sounds he creates and the structure of the film. Inside the Rectum, Noe really leaves much of the imagery and happenings to our imagination. The camera twists and turns and glides in and out of dim lights, homosexual activities, dark corners and unlit corridors. We’re focusing ourselves on the resounding echo of turmoil, the disgust and catatonic rage swelling up around us. The 28Hz drone continues to bubble on as they delve deeper into the cavernous oblivion of disdain, faces bleeding in and out of shots, everything so quick and out of focus it becomes nothing but a rigid blur. The final few moments of the film, however, is where it really comes alive. Unfortunately it doesn’t do much to enhance the film or the narrative or the characters, it only serves as a final shove out of his consciousness and into our own. It reminds me of the ending in A NEW LIFE. This turbulent, successive building of sounds that finally releases itself in the magnitude of nothingness.
Finally, we approach the rape scene. The two women in front of me catch only a brief hint of what’s to come, and quickly scamper out. I look back and notice the couple already gone. it’s only me and another guy a few rows back. Tension increases until the scene finally straggles in. silence permeates the air. The camera holds stagnant in eternity, momentarly suspending time for a brief rupture of a moment, if only to allow such an event to occur. Because it has to. The films beauty is derived from this one scene, this very act. This is something that must take place, it has already been decided. The films content and story slowdives into an insoluble poignancy at this point, as its narrative rolls back the tables of time another few hours. We’re left alone, in the humbling entrancement of the banal, justifying the means to a disgusting end. The characters continue to rewind themselves; we’re allowed to replay them. Subtle gestures are accentuated not by means of the film, but by the consciousness of the viewer. This is where the films power lies. It’s been said a million times before, but the transitory, instability of time and those caught within is something of indiscreet beauty and terror. We know not what lies ahead; we’re the same wilderness we’ve always been, blindly gashing forward in spite of ourselves. Because we must. We must move forward if only to discover ourselves.
I’d seen the film a good four or five times beforehand, but everything after the rape scene continues to conjure up swelling emotion. An unbearable, indescribable gnawing that threatens every moment of every day. We’ve learned to cope with the unknown without suffering its effects, but this film lies in the fourth dimension. All angles, all opportunities, all threads are exposed with gaping wounds. the playfulness and closeness between the two is something of a cinematic anomaly; something so prestine and pure is rarely captured (it helps that both were married in real life at the time). The small, enthusiastic gestures felt between the two would suggest that which does not exist; forever. It’s moments such as the shower scene that induce melancholic longing and narrative appreciation. The inexorable framework of our seams exists because it must.
The last shot we see is her reading the book she mentioned in the elevator on time. her contemplation on premonitions. A narrative hint into the fourth dimension; a door unknowingly ignored. The very last scene ruptures and jolts to a halt – kicking us out and leaving us to wander. I stood up knowing that the film was over, but the fellow behind me wasn’t quite sure. He sat long after i’d left.
The theater is about thirty minutes away from my home, a quick pacing through suburban emptiness and streetlights. Something both wonderful and terrible about nebraska is the nightlife – it doesn’t exist. I drove halfway across town and saw only a handful of cars, and this is on a friday night. It’s comforting and beautiful, however, driving briskly down a highway completely alone, under the streetlamps and crecent moon. It’s stabalizing. It’s a time when streetlights all blink in rapid succession, all choosing the same colors. Nobody is biking, no one out walking, no buses stopping. It’s in this depth of night, within the inexorable nature of itself, of the universe, that moments are truly defined. It’s irreconcilable. Time destroys all.
