Irreversible
I wanted to see Irreversible, but I find it offputting.
It's not the graphic violence - I've watched plenty of films that some would consider totally unpalatable, though I hear Irreversible is a special case in harshness.
It's not the reviews. Any film like this is bound to generate a fir amount of animosity.
It's not the rape scene. Again, I can handle it.
It's not even the vomit-inducing shakycam, because I sat out Blair Witch and I can sit this out too. I mean, if it really is that horrendous, I can always wait for video.
The problem - the problem that everyone seems loathe to admit - is that it looks absolutely rubbish. I mean, we've got Gaspar Noe claiming this film is about real life, when there's a gay club called 'The Rectum', for God's sake, full of leather-clad perverted sadists masturbating openly, laughing at a vicious beating and - the most telling detail - trying to rape a man who attacks them. Ooh, that's what those queers do to you, you know! Do something bad to youand they try to 'do' you! And for the sake of what? Bland fortune-cookie philosophising about how nothing lasts forever and rape is apparently unpleasant.
It may, I suppose, be a staggering work of art. Empire magazine appeared to reach orgasm just reviewing it. But really, seriously, isn't life too short to sit through another adolescent fantasy about evil gays?
Perfume V - he tries, bless him.
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