Irreversible

(Paperback)

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Gaspar No's Irreversible is uncompromising and visceral, an essential piece of modern cinema. Punctuated by dazzling avant-garde techniques, the film depicts, in reverse-chronological order, a woman's rape and her boyfriend and friend's subsequent hunt for vengeance through the underworld of Paris. Confrontational yet influential, Irreversible has polarized audiences since its release in 2002, making it until now almost impossible to study dispassionately. This first book-length study of Irreversible situates No's work in the ecosystem of contemporary French media, exploring how Irreversible and a larger-scale cinma du corps actually inspired France's film resurgence in the early twenty-first century. From there, Palmer shows Irreversible to be one of the most subversive star vehicles in recent world cinema, in the form of its iconic lead performers, Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, and Albert Dupontel. Investigating the spectrum of reactions created by No's film through its pugnacious stylistic design, its on-screen deconstruction of Paris, its international critical reception and its unexpectedly utopian counterpoints to violence and despair the book generates a new rational dialogue about Irreversible that challenges any instinct simply to reject or condemn it.

Reviews

This is an illuminating and highly original study of one of contemporary French cinemas most uncompromising and provocative films the book offers an in-depth account of Irrversibles production and distribution history, as well as a brief overview of the films critical reception in France, North America, and Europe. the book is a particularly valuable resource for students and scholars of cinema. * Tina Kendall, Oxford University Press Journals French Studies, Vol. 71 *

Author Bio

Tim Palmer is Professor of Film Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA. He is the author of Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema (Wesleyan University Press, 2011), and co-editor of Directory of World Cinema: France (Intellect, 2013). His research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.