i am having complicated thoughts about irreversible (2002), going to vent to distract myself. spoilers i guess, but the plot for this thing is so simple and its more abt the sensory experience so w/e

ok so 1) the direction is phenomenal and unlike anything i've ever seen, the cinematography is halfway between handheld found footage and incorporeal ghost camera and it made me want to throw up 10/10

the first couple of scenes dont so much have establishing shots as they do establishing tumbles, the sequence in club rectum is the most nightmarish shit just aesthetically but also someone gets their face bashed in with a fire extinguisher and i died

and this being revealed as the coke fueled chaotic aftermath of a brutal rape was interesting and well put together even though i knew that was the plot going in. the film put the pieces together in a really striking way

i was also struck by how the camera calms down as the film approaches the rape scene, and by the time we get to that part the camera is literally just resting on the ground for almost 10 minutes. the contrast was just super disarming to me, wrecked my shit

and this film wouldn't be nearly as remembered if it didn't then proceed to spend half its runtime showing the boring and mundane preceding events, including a part where the victim's boyfriend does "playful" nonconsensual touching while they're in bed together which is just ooof

ANYWAYS i didn't like how alex conveniently becomes comatose immediately after her rape. she's a non presence, the first half of the movie is just the boyfs fevered revenge plot & getting his arm snapped in a gay club. the rape scene itself is empathetic but shes just written out

and i guesssss this serves to make it a bit more mysterious when we don't know exactly what this guy's motives are, but it effectively means he's the only point of view we really get to see.

and its not like this is a worthless pov to explore, especially cus we see the boyf doesn't have very healthy views on consent himself which informs his actions later chronologically, but with just him it seems empty

despite the 1 shot rape scene taking up a literal tenth of the movie its like, not about the victim at all? not even a little.

like its very difficult to get around the fact that i just watched what's functionally the guy killing john wick's dog stretched out to almost 10 minutes. like alex is john wick's dog if john wick reacted by running into a gay club and getting his arm snapped

thus concludes my complicated thoughts about irreversible (2002)