Irreversible=Life?
Tuesday, Mar. 23, 2004 9:12 a.m.
There is a scene in the French movie 'Irreversible', in which the protagonist, Alex (played by Monica Bellucci), is chatting idly with two men in the train, on their way to someone's party. One of the men is her lover, Marcus, and the other Pierre, a friend and one-time lover. To me the conversation is laced with sexual tension; the two men try to out-talk each other and compete for Alex's attention. In the midst of all this, Alex mentions a book she is reading, which posits that everything that happens in our lives is predetermined and inevitable, and what we think are premonitory dreams are really glimpses of the future that has already been written. Neither man takes much interest in the book.
If you have seen the movie, you know what happens to Alex. She is brutally raped in an underpass after she leaves the party, alone. You would also know that in the narrative logic of the movie, the rape scene takes place before the conversation scene in the train, because 'Irreversible' is a movie that is played backwards, beginning with the end and ending at the beginning. Hence you are visually assaulted with the nauseating violence of the rape first, and then forced to sit and watch the scenes preceding that rape with the dark knowledge of impending tragedy, feeling anxious and sad for the characters who have yet to learn what Fate has in store for them.
I have never been so disturbed by a movie before. I cannot say that I regret watching it, but I know I was and still am affected by what I saw.
For one thing, it took awhile for the terror of anal sex to die away (never had it, don't want to try it, and after watching Bellucci get anal raped for nine whole minutes, doubt that will ever be curious enough to want to know what it's like, and don't you go suggesting porn movies that you think can change my mind).
Then there's that theory of one's life being already written. It's not a new idea, certainly, but when you see how the idea is played out in the movie, it's frightening. You choose to be with a player who annoys you to the point that you decide to leave a party that you arrive at together, without him. You choose to wear a flimsy sexy satin dress that makes your nipples provocatively pronounced. You choose to take the underpass because a prostitute tells you that it is easier to find a cab on the other side of the road. And because of all these choices that you make, you are brutally raped, beaten to within an inch of your life, and left to die.
It makes me wonder. If the theory holds true, then what have I said and done today, or yesterday, or a week or three months or five minutes ago, that has set off a chain of events leading to some unspeakable tragedy, or unlooked-for and undeserved joy? Does the end change according to the choices we make, or is it written in stone, and even the choices we think we're making are in fact choices we have been predetermined to make?
This is why I don't understand why people want their palms read and their fortunes told. Ignorance is bliss. With ignorance, we can hope. We can imagine a future that is beautiful and bright.
For some reason I am of two minds about the inevitability of all things in life. I believe our existence and our death is no accident, and neither are the children we give birth to and the people we marry. But everything else falls into the grey area where our free will has a part to play. I shudder to think what I have set in motion.
Older entries
Ramadan - 08 October 2006
Where I Have Been - 03 October 2006
Baby Talk - 10 August 2006
6 Weeks of Separation - 16 July 2006
Unacceptable Rudeness - 21 June 2006