.. I finally watched this film
I had been putting it off for all the reasons that appear in various threads on this board!
I am left wondering if I ended up feeling exactly what Noe wanted me to feel, i.e. therefore, the film is a success.. !
because, although I am an adult woman who has never been physically violent (I've never even slapped anyone),
this film awoke enough rage and horror in me that I, too, along with Marcus and kind, patient Pierre, 'wanted' revenge for Alex-
even thought I know any revenge exacted would be useless: nothing can undo The Irreversible acts of La Tenia.
maybe that was the director's intent ?
if I, sitting comfortably and safely in a chair, watching a film- can be goaded into wanting Marcus' and Pierre's to succeed in hurting the brutal predator, La Tenia, then that means the capacity for violence is within me.
a sobering, disturbing thought.
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also, I did not feel the film was 'homophobic', despite its setting and location choices.
in my opinion, the film was about the human capacity for destructive rage. for cruelty. for stunning, mind-numbing levels of violence.
the film could have been about women's violence against women. men's violence against men. the rich against the poor. the poor against the rich. the physically strong against the physically frail. adults against vulnerable children. any combination..
I would hope any thinking adult knows La Tenia is no more representative of "all gays" than an infamous rapist is representative of "all heterosexual men" !
and that hate and slurs exist and are hurled at all groups- gender/religious/racial. etc, etc
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final, unexpected reaction..
I would have expected to link this film with 'Malena', thematically, except for the casting of an actress.
but now that I've seen 'The Irreversible', I find it compelling to note that Monica Bellucci's dazzling beauty attracted 2 directors to tell similar stories:
in 'Malena', Tornatore also shows unspeakably ugly, human behavior that toxic envy and covetousness can wreak on beauty.. beauty that smites bitter, spiritually small minds with the urge to destroy and degrade instead of be inspired by, or be awakened to sympathy or love.
there is a scene in 'Malena' wherein Monica Bellucci's character, Malena, is attacked by a small group of poor, simple, otherwise 'harmless' looking women.. middle aged, everyday women with everyday lives. they turn into a monstrous, tiny, 5 minutes-of-unadulterated fury mob. and 'their men' stand there, watching.
I find that scene as unbearable to watch, and for the same reasons, as the perhaps more famous, singled-out-by-the-press, underpass scene in 'Irreversible.'
there is no overt sexual act performed in that scene from 'Malena.' no The Rectum, just a beautiful Italian village. no 'seedy, extreme' homosexual predilictions, just a 'normal' group of 'folk'.
but the ugliness and brutality are as shocking, as raw, as horrific: to me, they are of the same magnitude and order that make one almost ashamed of being human.
and the sheer, breathcatching, innocent Beauty, both symbolically and literally, of this cruelty's object, its victim.. is the same.
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