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Friday, Mar. 28, 2003 / 10:23 p.m. ~At Least It Made Me Forget, For a While~ I thought I might just read a few reviews of the movie I just saw, but there appears to be too much to digest at this moment. I need to digest my Lean Pocket anyway. I hadn't been to a movie in a theater since "Far From Heaven" with Sandy, and that was a while ago, but I read about "Irreversible" somewhere, probably Entertainment Weekly, and just knowing that it's a movie that a lot of people cannot sit through made it seem a challenge. The ad in the free weekly has blurbs like: "Mesmerizing! The most visually audacious import since 'Run Lola Run'!" and "One of the most electrifying, daunting and original motion pictures in years!" and "A masterpiece! A work of visceral, stylistic bravura!", and this, which really intrigued me, made me cut out the ad and plan to see it tonight, opening night (though I think it came out in France a year ago...): "At film festivals around the world, a few hundred people walked out of 'Irreversible'. The thousands that stayed gave it a rapturous ovation. What will you think?" Okay, okay. What did I think? I thought the crowd was awfully small for opening night for a movie with an ad like that. I thought the opening credits would make me sick, they were dizzying. The movie is told backwards, like "Memento", or "Pulp Fiction", and it's literal, end credits first. The camera work is dizzying, the soundtrack is industrial noise. I kept thinking of "Eraserhead" and how I've never sat through it all. And "Blue Velvet" and how hard it was to watch too. Really, the camera is upside down, swirling, tilting, moving, and the view is dark, it's night, it's outside, then we're inside, watching a fat naked man on a bed, with a clothed man, and they're talking, and the fucking camera keeps moving all around and I thought I'd be sick, but no, I knew this was going to be hard, I had to watch. Action (action?) moves to the club downstairs from these two, 'Rectum' is the name, a gay bar (a bit of gay bashing here, watch out), and someone frantic. I'd have to see it again to truly understand what was happening, but someone gets carried out on a stretcher, and then we're inside the club as that someone is searching for someone, a man, and we see, all in tilted camera angles, and swirling, and darkness and red light, and darkness and red light, men having sex, men dripping candle wax on each other, lots of sodomy, lots of sex, but it's flashes, and I think maybe my imagination filled in the gaps, but there was an erect penis in one shot, just a glimpse - a huge no-no in American films (that aren't porn). All I'll say here (gee, wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone, although if you read the reviews online you will have it spoiled) is there's a gruesome murder, I mean really gruesome, like, "Oh my god, that looks real, is that real? I can't look, oh, god, he's really doing that, isn't he? Is this a snuff film or WHAT?!" gruesome. I had to look away, just averted my eyes a bit. It was too much, really. And that music, discordant and grating, the camera moving all around. We keep going backwards, our main man and his buddy frantic, looking for someone, being asked for money, there is a lot of yelling, a lot of crazy camera work, and the previous scene is sort of stuck in my head. I wanted to leave, I kept thinking of the ad saying how people had walked out, how this was a challenge, and I hadn't even gotten to the 10 minute rape scene yet! Or is it 9? Does it matter? Did I actually watch that? And the sound effects. Jesus. When he pulls out of her? Christ. Who would ever think an underground tunnel is safer than a taxicab? I'm just saying. Yes, yes, Monica Belucci is beautiful, and if you dig watching women get raped, sure, okay, but there is nothing about it that seems like a movie. And the song, "That's Entertainment", as sung by Ethel Merman kept going through my head. Along with the question, "Is this entertainment?", and "Can I sit here?" and "Why did I come to see this movie?" and "Is it going to get better?"..... We see what happened before, and as we keep going back in time, the camera rights itself, slowly, the colors are still oranges and yellows, not so much red anymore, and we see happy people, mostly, and then tenderness, and the happy couple (Monica Belucci and Vincent Cassel are a couple in 'real life' too) cavorting naked in bed, but I can't think of sex anymore, that's sort of been ruined. Back in time, farther, but never farther than that same night. It's all still the same night, isn't it? Easy to forget. And then outdoors, green grass, and she's reading her book about time, and how fate is already existing for us all, we have awareness of it in 'premonitory dreams'........ I saw three women walk out when it was over, excitedly discussing it, saying how they liked it, as if they'd just seen a comedy. I couldn't figure that out. I don't think I could revisit this film, not even to try to figure out who those two men were at the beginning, or to get a handle on what really happens in that club, and I could never watch a woman get raped again, even if it is just someone acting. Whew. I think I wanted to write a lot of things earlier today, maybe something about the interview with the Newsweek Paris Bureau Chief on NPR this afternoon. He was so damned articulate. Made me realize what a hack I am, how my language is peppered with vernacular, slang, a lot of 'you know's, and 'sort of's, and other piss poor excuses for English language. Or maybe how Jeff (formerly known as 'the new boy') and I got into a bit of a debate today and I called him an ignorant redneck, because he is, but he just smiled, standing in his cube, kneeling with one knee on his chair, the kind of person who smiles through arguments trying to disarm his enemy. Army boy, why do I bother trying to talk about the War? The other day I told him about the Veterans teach-in and he said he doesn't see what's wrong with the War. "I don't see what's wrong with it", he said. Today he goaded me, he pushed buttons, he started it, he wanted to engage me, then later he told Kathy that some people take things too seriously. I think killing hundreds of people in Baghdad and surrounding Iraqi cities is pretty serious. I think American kids dying over there, or missing, or held captive, or even journalists dead or missing, is pretty serious. Oooh, it's a hot topic. It's too hot. People are emptying French wine bottles into rivers, calling each other names, getting into fisticuffs during marches. The world's gone mad. And even scarier is the supposed 'reason' for much of this, the plans of the people behind the Project For a New American Century. G'head, read a bit of it. Read what Richard Perle had to say about Iraq. These people want to impose American ideals on the rest of the world, like the rest of the world wants it. No matter. It's like the British Colonialists, and the Christian missionaries. You can't impose your will on other people. I mean, wait, they did, they will continue, but you shouldn't. It's wrong. I'm rambling. I'm really tired, it's warm in here, there is so much pollen outside I've closed the porch for a few days. I'll have to turn on the a/c if it doesn't cool off like it's supposed to. Wow, that movie was so intense. I can't believe I just saw it. At least I got it over with, no more wondering, no more suspense. If you see it, if you saw it, tell me what you think/thought, please. And don't let me sway you. It's sort of amazing, as a film experience. Really. I think I want to turn on the TV, see what's happening in the War. Oh, that occurred to me when the film was over, that I'd forgotten all about the War...... Cost of the War in Iraq
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