Day 1 - Part 2 - Irreversible

So, I saw this French movie today, Irreversible and the impact of that movie on me is pretty much as it's name is. After watching this utterly disturbing movie, I realised that somethings in life should just be left as they are. I had read about the film's dark sense of helpless sudden mishappenings leaving people disturbed and upset, but I chose to go ahead and watch it still thinking, "What the heck, I am sure whatever it has, I have seen worse in real life." While, I may have seen much worse in real life, it still breaks my heart to witness something so simple and ordinary go so horribly wrong in a matter of few hours.

The film is made in an ex post facto format - a reverse chronological sequence of events. An ominous 13 scenes comprise the entire movie and it begins with an arresting of two men, one of whom is being carried out on a stretcher while a third person - actually a badly bludgeoned dead body is carried out behind them. The next scene (sequentially, the previous event), is about the two arrested men looking for a "le tenia" in a French gay pub. They find a person who they believe is "le tenia", only to be attacked by him. While one guy is still struggling with him, the other guy (who was on the stretcher), bludgeons him to death with a fire extinguisher while by-standers look on.

The next scene is that these two men are in a shady area, accompanied by a mafia kingpin, trying to find the whereabouts of "le tenia" from street-side prostitutes. One of them tells them that he, a pimp, would be found at the gay pub (mentioned above). The next scene is about the two men getting out of the pub only to see a huge police presence who tell them that there has been a rape in the subway. When they see the badly bludgeoned body of the victim being carried away, they realise that the woman is none other than the girlfriend of one of the men and a close friend of the other. While they decide to wait for police to do justice, a gangster tells them that the cops are no good and they should get their own revenge by killing the rapist. The men, though unsure at first, agree. Next, there is a scene of a party where the two men, accompanied by the victim, are at a party and she, disgusted by her boyfriend's drug abuse and loose behaviour with other women at the party, walks out to hail a cab back home despite her friend telling her it is late and unsafe. As the traffic on the street is heavy and she needs to cross the road, she takes the pedestrian subway only to be faced with a man (le tenia) beating up a woman mercilessly. As she tries to walk on by, the man notices her and rapes her brutally before beating her up badly, leaving only when he thinks she is dead. She ends up in a coma. In this scene, it is evident that this guy is not the guy who was killed in the first scene (chronologically the last event), although he was standing right next to the murdered man.

The next scene is about the three of them in a subway, just casually talking. The last scene (the first in sequence) is about the girl telling her boyfriend that she is pregnant and both of them, elated, decide to celebrate it by going to a party with their friend. The film ends with the woman's visual holding her belly and sleeping peacefully in a garden with a slight smile on her face. The final text on the screen read in French, "Time Destroys Everything."

I have seen a lot of dark movies, but this has to be one of the worst as it left me with a very disgusting feeling, a feeling of helplessness and thinking that while, we, as human beings believe that we are invincible and strongest among all species, it takes minimum effort to destroy that belief convincingly. I am left with a horrid feeling in the pit of my stomach today, wondering, if humans are not safe in this world, who is?