The Movie: Gaspar Noe's Irréversible uses a single timeline playing out in reverse in order to take us from a place of extreme violence and cruelty to blissful ignorance except the audience, unlike the characters, remain all too aware of what is to come. In chronological order it's a fairly standard tale of a fun night out gone horribly wrong, as the beautiful Alex (Monica Belucci) is raped on her way home from a party and her boyfriend and ex set out for revenge. Played in reverse, however, the sequence of events takes on new meaning. The Gory Scene: The opening scene - i.e. the closing moment of the movie in terms of chronological order - sees the avenging boyfriend and his friend track down the alleged rapist in a seedy S&M nightclub. After a confrontation leads to the boyfriend having his arm broken and almost raped himself, his friend steps in with a fire hydrant. Noe's camera is unflinching as the man's head is caved in blow by blow, an ominous low rumbling on the soundtrack making an already incredibly unsettling scene all the more potent and disturbing.
