Should Irreversible Be Banned Or Studied?: an analysis

Irreversible is a 2002 revenge thriller by French director Gaspar Noe about the consequences of making impulsive decisions. 

Pierre and Alex are metaphors for Alex’s mind. Pierre is the rational thinker and Marcus follows his urges and impulses. Pierre’s habit of thinking too much turns Alex off and she leaves him to be with Marcus who doesn’t think about anything at all.

The film is told in 2 parts, the first part of the film focuses on the decisions Marcus makes after finding out that Alex has been raped; the 2nd part of the film focuses on Alex and the decisions she makes prior to being raped.

• The 1st or 2nd act of the film shows Pierre, the critical thinker, pleading with Marcus who seeks the man who raped his girlfriend. The unstable camera movement reflects Marcus’ state of mind. He assaults a cab driver, steals the cab and assaults a prostitute who allegedly saw his girlfriend’s rapist. But even though Marcus is irrational, he is leading Pierre, the thinker, which also serves as a metaphor of our body’s power over our minds (Matt. 26:41: Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak). Eventually, Marcus’ wrath leads him to Hell, or, in this case, a gay S&M club called the Rectum where he assaults the wrong man who gets the upper hand and attempts to rape him. Luckily, Pierre bashes the would-be rapists head in with a fire hydrant. 
• In the 2nd or 1st act of the film, Marcus’ lascivious behavior at a party where he gropes and flirts with other women, snorts coke, and drinks alcohol upsets Alex. Pierre pleads with her not to leave alone but she insists on doing so anyway—her 1st mistake is leaving the party upset and emotional and going home by herself, distracted and unaware of her surroundings. Then, instead of waiting on a taxi which would have been safer, she takes bad advice from some woman on the street who tells her that the subway is safer, again not using good judgement—her 2nd mistake. It is also worth noting that the subway entrance is right outside of the apartment which means that the tunnel where she is raped is directly underneath the building she just left.

Another parallel between Alex and Marcus is where their emotions lead them. In Marcus’ case, his emotions takes him to the Rectum. In Alex’s case, her emotions takes her to the subway tunnel. And both of these places—the subway tunnel and The S&M nightclub—are red representing Hell and violence.  In both cases, an emotion or external agents—the drugs, alcohol, and cocaine at the party—separates the character’s mind from reality and rational decision-making.

• Alex leaving Pierre for Marcus represents her giving in to the “animal” side of human nature. This is characterized by her dancing seductively with 2 women and further characterized when she accuses Pierre of thinking too much instead of letting himself go which is what she does in choosing to leave him and to be with Marcus. When the three are together on the subway, Alex says to Pierre, “Love is selfish. When making love a person thinks about his own pleasure rather than his partners.” The selfish paradigm in this statement comes back to bite her when she sees Marcus acting like an animal at the party—drinking alcohol, snorting coke, and fondling other women.

Prescience is also a major theme in this film and here are some examples:

• Marcus wakes up complaining about numbness in his right arm which is broken later in the film. And Alex has a dream that describes her rape later in the film.
• Alex’s emotional decisions puts her in the position to be raped. Marcus’ anger puts him in a similar position where he himself would have been raped if not for Pierre saving him.
• Alex is sodomized, foreshadowing the name of the S&M club called The Rectum.
• At the end or beginning of the film, Alex sits underneath a poster of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey describing the film as ‘The Ultimate Trip.’ In the following or previous scene, there’s a background song about space travel. The film also begins in outer space.
• Alex is pregnant in the final scene. Later, she finds out she is pregnant as a result of a pregnancy test.