The other day, I discovered my shock limit.
I didn't think that it was possible.
In fact, I still don't think that it was possible.
I have watched probably every scene of extreme violence in cinema, be it within their original contexts or via splatter montages on youtube (which, I have to admit, get a bit much after the fiftieth decapitation), but nothing prepared me for this depraved piece of cinema.
And no. I'm not talking about The Human bloody Centipede. That's infant school stuff.
A friend and I had decided to stay in for once. We bought a few ales and a packet of hobnobs and set ourselves up in the living room with a blanket on our legs to keep the chill off. The lights dimmed, it was time to put the film on. "Isn't it pleasant to have a nice evening in," I even said, I think.
And then it happened.
Adults told me that I was too young to see certain films, which meant that there wasn't a thing in the world that could stop me finding them, borrowing them, copying them, just as long as I could see this illicit material which I'd been promised would burn my eyes out. If it was taboo, it was good, even if it was shit.
I used to watch Bad Girls on ITV crouched over the small telly in my parents room with the volume on one bar. I would watch the first series of South Park at my friend's house and cover up to mum by saying we'd been drinking cider..
I used to watch Bad Girls on ITV crouched over the small telly in my parents room with the volume on one bar. I would watch the first series of South Park at my friend's house and cover up to mum by saying we'd been drinking cider..
This was exactly what got me started:
Monthy Python and The Holy Grail.
The Shining. Predator 2. Alien 3. The Terminator.
These were the films, or should I say gems, nestled amongst my parent's collection of movies recorded off the telly. I must have fast-forwarded through a hundred movies looking for the slightest bit of violence in order to find these. Thank goodness my dad wasn't a David Cronenbourg fan or I may have overdosed too young.
Since then there hasn't been a means of death I haven't seen realised fictitiously on screen.
Don't get me wrong- I'm not a sick individual. For an example of how "normal" this condition is just look how far the Saw franchise has come. And my film appreciation is not merely limited to those with blood and guts. This would be a very short and/or repetitive blog if that was so. And I wouldn't have even touched mumblecore.
These are just films that I watch from time to time, non-exclusively, but my point being: without emotional effect.
Don't get me wrong- I'm not a sick individual. For an example of how "normal" this condition is just look how far the Saw franchise has come. And my film appreciation is not merely limited to those with blood and guts. This would be a very short and/or repetitive blog if that was so. And I wouldn't have even touched mumblecore.
These are just films that I watch from time to time, non-exclusively, but my point being: without emotional effect.
None of this 'shock-training' could prepare me for this one movie.
Sat so pleasantly in front of a telly on that rainy tuesday evening with a cup of tea in one hand and a beer in the other, a part of me cried like it had never cried before.
The director of Irreversible (2002), Gaspar Noe, discovered that the noise frequency of 28Hz, similar to that produced by earthquakes, causes nausea, sickness and vertigo in human beings.
Not only is this the soundtrack to the first 30minutes of this film- a droning, whirring, circus trombone which does nothing but go around and around in a grrrrrrrruuuuuuuurrrroooowwwwwwwwuuuurrrrgggrrrrrrrrruuu, but it is the soundtrack to a continuous shot which swoops and spins and twists through the labyrinthine corridors of an underground Parisian gay S+M torture dungeon with dim red flashing lights and visions of the club's patrons sexually torturing each other.
So far so tame, you say? Well, throughout this grot safari we are following the film's main protagonist as he storms through the many rooms and corridors searching for someone. He is angry. No, he is BLINKING ANGRY. The camera twists and loops enough to make you feel sick through this alone, let alone the neverending chuck-tune you are forced to endure. Just when you think you're ok- just when the camera seems to settle somewhere and our man finds who he is looking for- Noe pulls his puke ace.
Our man's arm is snapped in half in front of our eyes, then his friend beats the villian to the floor, picks up a fire extinguisher and- in real time- BEATS HIS FACE IN WITH IT. Doesn't sound too bad? Well no, it is. You see every single pummel that this face gets from the fire extinguisher, to the point that his skull is being caved in and bits of it are smashing off.
Not only is this the soundtrack to the first 30minutes of this film- a droning, whirring, circus trombone which does nothing but go around and around in a grrrrrrrruuuuuuuurrrroooowwwwwwwwuuuurrrrgggrrrrrrrrruuu, but it is the soundtrack to a continuous shot which swoops and spins and twists through the labyrinthine corridors of an underground Parisian gay S+M torture dungeon with dim red flashing lights and visions of the club's patrons sexually torturing each other.
So far so tame, you say? Well, throughout this grot safari we are following the film's main protagonist as he storms through the many rooms and corridors searching for someone. He is angry. No, he is BLINKING ANGRY. The camera twists and loops enough to make you feel sick through this alone, let alone the neverending chuck-tune you are forced to endure. Just when you think you're ok- just when the camera seems to settle somewhere and our man finds who he is looking for- Noe pulls his puke ace.
Our man's arm is snapped in half in front of our eyes, then his friend beats the villian to the floor, picks up a fire extinguisher and- in real time- BEATS HIS FACE IN WITH IT. Doesn't sound too bad? Well no, it is. You see every single pummel that this face gets from the fire extinguisher, to the point that his skull is being caved in and bits of it are smashing off.
I reached my limit.
This is actually not the most controversial and appalling scene in the movie, but it is by far the most visceral.
Gaspar Noe tried very hard. He succeeded.
Here's my topic of the day:
Is the sole fact that a film provokes a strong reaction within you a sign of its merit?
My answer:
If you showed me a video of my cat being eaten by another cat I would want to throw up but I don't think I could thank the man who filmed it.
Then again, this movie is fictional and my cat is real.
This is actually not the most controversial and appalling scene in the movie, but it is by far the most visceral.
Gaspar Noe tried very hard. He succeeded.
Ruggero Deodato employed a similar level of effort in his attempt to shock with Cannibal Holocaust (1980), a multi-layered found-footage mockumentary charting the exploration of a group of young American filmmakers into the Amazon rainforest.
The director managed to blur reality by combining a very realistic handheld camera style with believable acting, genuine locations and genuine tribespeople as the cannibals. But this wasn't enough. Extracting stylistic elements from the italian Mondo documentaries of the sixties, he discovered that by portraying real brutality to live animals alongside the realistic fictional murder of human beings, the boundaries of reality in the viewers mind would become blurred.
Deodato's key stroke was to make the morality of his movie ambiguous. Who are the real monsters? The flesh eating cannibals who tear the filmmakers to pieces? Or is it the filmmakers who brutalise wildlife and rape teenage village girls?
And this ambiguity, for me, is also where Irreversible stands up.
Its narrative plays out in reverse- a revenge story with the revenge being claimed at the beginning, we then go back in time to see why. And yes, the crime is bad enough, in some cruel way, to justify the horror of the act that we begin with. So this film is forgiven for making my eyes want to scream.
And despite Noe's desire for your recently eaten dinner, Irreversible is a triumph in the craft of filmmaking with its long, dynamic, sometimes physically impossible camera movements, and complicated continuous takes- some up to half an hour long.
Yes, it is possible to use the word Hitchcock in this article. (see Rope (1948).
So.
Here's my topic of the day:
Is the sole fact that a film provokes a strong reaction within you a sign of its merit?
My answer:
If you showed me a video of my cat being eaten by another cat I would want to throw up but I don't think I could thank the man who filmed it.
Then again, this movie is fictional and my cat is real.
This is how Gaspar Noe upset me so much:
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