Still, you had to wonder how the movie might have played if its structure hadn’t been reversed — if its conclusion bent more toward the usual. We now, with Noé’s permission, have a chance to find out.

“Irreversible”‘s graphic violence and flinch-inducing rape scene (eight minutes, uncut) made headlines when the film premiered in Cannes last May, with reports of audience members fainting, throwing ...

More stories by Nigel M. indieWIRE: In your first feature, “I Stand Alone,” there’s a line, “No act is reversible.” The butcher from that film also appears in the beginning of “Irreversible.” Why did ...

A few days before the Cannes premiere of his new feature Enter the Void, director Gaspar Noé is in fretful mood, in "a huge, huge rush" to get his film finished in time for screening. The last film he ...

It’s one of the most shocking scenes in cinema history: A woman named Alex (Monica Bellucci) walks through an underpass. While walking, she witnesses a man attacking another woman. The other woman ...

As if the French haven’t taken enough of a hit lately, here comes Gaspar Noe. In recent weeks, the Nietzsche-spouting, overage enfant terrible of new French cinema has been making the publicity rounds ...

Irreversible unfolds in 12 steps but will leave no one in a state of enlightenment or recovery. The writer-director, Gaspar Noe, has shot his story in a dozen long, unbroken takes and organized it ...

A celluloid memento mori that unspools in reverse from gut-wrenching violence to sweetly observed moments of sublime tenderness, "Irreversible" is a demanding but rewarding emotional odyssey in a ...