Hello, David,

I saw the film, as I said as the initiator of this thread on Irriversible.
I mentioned another film - from a German filmmaker who I met personally and
justified his 'Sophieeee' as being a feminist film.
Well, it is possible that these two men, as filmmakers of these two
controversial films (which are both, I have to admit, very well made from a
technical and artistic view point for their use of photography and
performance and their metafilmic quality which informs the theory of
filmmaking running steadily through both of them ) thought of making a
feminist film by dialectically employing the same rhetorical codes that we
know to be De Sadian, that is the exposure of those debased historical,
economical, religious, social and so on... circumstances which make it
possible for me to perpetrate rape and remain unpunished.
In the film Irreversible, the crime does not remain unpunished: but it is
not the state that gets the rapist and trial him - it is an execution which
verges to personal vendetta, which the massacre of the rapist in the dark
gutters of a hell-like dantesque disco for gay men.

The film is therefore feminist, perhaps, but mainly homophobic, since it
depicts the life of gays in the most shameful way, until these two
heterosexual men, both in love with the victim, find him in this disco and
kill him in front of the entire community of gays, by smashing his face
with something like a fire-extinguisher.

Most difficult to take in, this personal tribal vendetta, which it becomes
totally justified at the very end of the film when we learn that the poor
woman raped was in fact pragnant.

I do not feel more inclined to justify this other murder - the murder of
the rapist - in the light of the abuse suffered by the righteous man, who
has had his wife killed by this gay-rapist.[ Not that I prefer those films
which deal with crime being sorted out by the state, but really, in
irreversible and Sophieee what I cannot accept is the justification given
on a total comprehensible emotional level to personal vendetta
and 'linciaggio'.] Yet, the two filmmakers play too skillfully their
rhetorical tools to make the the cords of the hearts in the audience quiver
and say: 'Well done!' when they witness the scene in which the face of the
rapist is being smashed down to almost a minced meat pulp by the abused
man's who wife has died. I thing it solves more a problem of the two men's
antagonism in terms of possession of the female object of desire, that a
real feminist point against rape.

Another thing: the actress chosen - the talented Italian Monica Bellucci -
is far tooooo beautiful to really leave the poeple completely insensible at
her body exposed during the rape film. I found that questionable , also
having seen another more splendid film, Malena, where she also is used as
the irresistible object of desire: there, in Tornatore's film, the theme of
rape and shame is really treated from a feminist perspective, most
interestingly so because it is a man doing it.
A final point: I found criticizabkle that when the rapist kills the victim,
he shout obsene words against her as the perfect borgeois bitch, making his
speech alsmost politically justified.

Well, I am interested in what you thini, David, about Tornatore's Malena,
and his treatment of women (always starring  this amazingly beautiful
Monica Bellucci ).

erminia
erminia







On Wed, 2 Jul 2003 21:58:55 +0100, David Evans <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>The film isn't abuse of the Other, is it, because it depicts abuse of the
>Other? I thought I was making it clear that I think the film is Feminist,
i.e.
>wants to right the wrongs of patriarchy, or at least to highlight them. The
>film does this in more subtle ways than the graphic depiction of a rape,
>(mainly through what I considered a clear-eyed representation of the
discourse
>in a relationship -  financial, verbal, etc.). And what we're watching is
the
>performances. Now if the actors feel abused, or manipulated, that is, I
think,
>also an interesting matter (cf 'Romance').
>- David Evans
>
>"david.bircumshaw" wrote:
>
>> Hi David Evans
>>
>> Firstly, I must apologise to those on digest for including the whole of
the
>> source for this message, but I suspect that David's message, from its
>> references,  was meant to go to the list but has just come to me
instead, a
>> familiar BritPo tale indeed. Now, as I have emphasised, I haven't seen
>> 'Irreversible', all I know about it are the opinions of others who have
>> viewed it. What is hovering on the edges of this discussion is, I think,
the
>> use of language: there is no doubt that male brutality against women
exists,
>> but nor is there any doubt that women can be equally destructive towards
>> males, nor that either gender can do so towards each other, just as
racism
>> isn't a prerogative of white people of European descent nor is class
>> prejudice exclusive to the higher brackets. The problem here is that a
>> generality of terms is waiting in the wings, some particular forms of
>> prejudice and abuse are more highlighted by cultural history than others,
>> but they go on all the time in all corners. Myself, for instance, having
>> grown up in the English Midlands industrial city of Birmingham I have a
deep
>> aversion to people from the nearby Wolverhampton, while I laugh at
persons
>> from Coventry and Received Standard Accents make me wince as they remind
me
>> of the hierarchies of power that I encountered from childhood on. We all
>> have our prejudices, in one form or another. Whether or not the accounts
of
>> 'Irreversible' I have had are accurate or not I do not know, what I do
know
>> is that I have encountered things that fit into the mind-set it
apparently
>> projects, I HATE abuse of the Other, whatever its form, and one of the
>> oldest, saddest stories is where the Victimised transfer the feelings
they
>> have received on to those Others.
>>
>> Does that make sense?
>>
>> All the Best
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> David Bircumshaw
>>
>> Leicester, England
>>
>> Home Page
>>
>> A Chide's Alphabet
>>
>> Painting Without Numbers
>>
>> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "David Evans" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 8:58 PM
>> Subject: Re: The Emperor's Sleeve, or, Yer Way Arab But Yer Kiss is Kinda
>> English
>>
>> I haven't got anything particularly complicated to say
about 'Irreversible,'
>> except that I disagree entirely with what has been written about it on
this
>> list. I think the film has an explicitly Feminist (large f) ethos. I
think
>> the
>> film has very clear-eyed things to say about relationships, about why men
>> hate
>> women, about the sexual brutality of men, etc..
>> I say this only to counter the other opinions expressed about the film by
>> members of this list.
>> - David Evans
>>
>> "david.bircumshaw" wrote:
>>
>> > Erminia wrote:
>> >
>> > >Dave, have you seen Irreversible?<
>> >
>> > No, I haven't, but by chance it happened that I was talking to a French
>> > friend of mine tonight who has and he echoes your opinion. Brutality
seems
>> > to be becoming common in film culture, along with escapism, so there
is a
>> > kind of polarity there. Tonight some friends of mine were watching a
>> filming
>> > of 'Sunset Boulevard' (1950) and it struck me that it is more or less
>> > unimaginable to think of Hollywood producing something as complex as
that
>> > now, with its objective examinations of sexuality, ageing, social
power,
>> > money etc. Instead we have a spectrum that rests on violence, sex and
>> > fantasy (oh Fantasy! Gimme Star Wars, gimme Harry Potter, gimme The
Lord
>> of
>> > the Rings, so we can all pretend that what happens doesn't really
happen.
>> > And gimme special effects, especially!). The nexus you've mentioned of
>> eros,
>> > power and death seems very apt, again tonight, I was thinking tonight
of
>> the
>> > great Polish science-fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, whose work avoids
the
>> > traps of escapism and egocentricity, instead one has a fictive creation
>> that
>> > is simultaneously disturbing, bleak, humorous and socially and
>> individually
>> > aware. Significantly he has ceased writing creative work in the last
>> decade
>> > as he is so disillusioned with contemporary culture. One does not find
in
>> > his writing that it is dependent on Lem the person, certainly he is
>> 'there',
>> > style I defined to someone this evening as signature, but though style
is
>> > signature it has to speak to someone, to some other. My subjectivity
might
>> > be written over all I write but the point of what I write does not
rest in
>> > me, I imagine a line, a thin link between the ego and what is not it,
>> > wherein poetry, say, can happen somewhere midway. Language is both
private
>> > and common, and exists on that tension, strung as taut and carefully
as a
>> > tennis racket.
>> >
>> > All the Best
>> >
>> > Dave
>> >
>> > David Bircumshaw
>> >
>> > Leicester, England
>> >
>> > Home Page
>> >
>> > A Chide's Alphabet
>> >
>> > Painting Without Numbers
>> >
>> > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm