Saturday, January 31
Irreversible
The much talked about French art flick Irreversible has finally hit the shores of Singapore. Im very excited bout it...
When the film first debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in the spring of 2002...the reaction of the crowd was palpable...the shocker has been panned as a pornography and worthless exploitation flick that somehow didnt agree with most of the critics who hailed it as a film masterpiece...
The film took the noir genre of movies to a new level...violence and sex crimes as juxtaposed with romance and love...given that the plot of the movie is told backwards...the chronoogical climax and denouement come near the beginnin of the movie...it's equally impossible to avoid explicit discussion of the much talked about 9 minute anal rape scene that got incredibly graphic and violent...as much as that's the most controversial point of the movie anyone who's seen the movie would also be hard pressed to talk about the merciless beatin of a man whose face literally caves in after being senselessly pounded upon by a fire extinguisher...what takes the cake is...in both scenes...the camera continues shooting and goes on and on...never cuttin away...as if participatin in the violent rape and beatin...
The movie thus arrives in Singapore with one hell of a reputation...(from SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review) Irreversible comes with a helluva reputation. It is one of those rare films that cause major censorship ripples and can join the company of films as notorious as The Last House on the Left (1972), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Salo or 120 Days of Sodom (1975), and the film it often closely resembles, Day of the Woman/I Spit on Your Grave (1978). The screening I attended at Beck’s Incredible Film Festival in Wellington, New Zealand, had had two court injunctions brought against it by the conservative Christian-funded Society for the Protection of Community Standards who were trying to ban it on the grounds of it being injurious to public morality. Furthermore, before the screening theatre management cautioned the sell-out audience and offered to refund the money of anybody who chose to walk out or had strayed in under the mistaken impression as to what they were seeing. Incredulously the audience was even further given warning that the sirens and strobe effects could potentially be the cause of epileptic seizures (as had been reported overseas). Management later confirmed to me that of an audience of 500, there had been 15 refunds and one vomiting.
Jesus...with this kind of reputation it's hard NOT to notice it...Ive not seen the movie...and as far as my friends are concerned they're all geared up for the movie too...ive been preppin them enough to understand what to expect...i dont know bout myself...i'll probably be bringin a blanket or somethin to cover my eyes...i mean...a savage beating of a man that has his face beaten to a pulp and an extended rape scene that got brutal...geezz....sometimes humans do need some violence in their lives...
The much talked about French art flick Irreversible has finally hit the shores of Singapore. Im very excited bout it...
When the film first debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in the spring of 2002...the reaction of the crowd was palpable...the shocker has been panned as a pornography and worthless exploitation flick that somehow didnt agree with most of the critics who hailed it as a film masterpiece...
The film took the noir genre of movies to a new level...violence and sex crimes as juxtaposed with romance and love...given that the plot of the movie is told backwards...the chronoogical climax and denouement come near the beginnin of the movie...it's equally impossible to avoid explicit discussion of the much talked about 9 minute anal rape scene that got incredibly graphic and violent...as much as that's the most controversial point of the movie anyone who's seen the movie would also be hard pressed to talk about the merciless beatin of a man whose face literally caves in after being senselessly pounded upon by a fire extinguisher...what takes the cake is...in both scenes...the camera continues shooting and goes on and on...never cuttin away...as if participatin in the violent rape and beatin...
The movie thus arrives in Singapore with one hell of a reputation...(from SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review) Irreversible comes with a helluva reputation. It is one of those rare films that cause major censorship ripples and can join the company of films as notorious as The Last House on the Left (1972), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Salo or 120 Days of Sodom (1975), and the film it often closely resembles, Day of the Woman/I Spit on Your Grave (1978). The screening I attended at Beck’s Incredible Film Festival in Wellington, New Zealand, had had two court injunctions brought against it by the conservative Christian-funded Society for the Protection of Community Standards who were trying to ban it on the grounds of it being injurious to public morality. Furthermore, before the screening theatre management cautioned the sell-out audience and offered to refund the money of anybody who chose to walk out or had strayed in under the mistaken impression as to what they were seeing. Incredulously the audience was even further given warning that the sirens and strobe effects could potentially be the cause of epileptic seizures (as had been reported overseas). Management later confirmed to me that of an audience of 500, there had been 15 refunds and one vomiting.
Jesus...with this kind of reputation it's hard NOT to notice it...Ive not seen the movie...and as far as my friends are concerned they're all geared up for the movie too...ive been preppin them enough to understand what to expect...i dont know bout myself...i'll probably be bringin a blanket or somethin to cover my eyes...i mean...a savage beating of a man that has his face beaten to a pulp and an extended rape scene that got brutal...geezz....sometimes humans do need some violence in their lives...
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