[orf]

I'm also an owner of Irreversible and I've seen it three times, and it hasn't really lost its potency after the third viewing -- it's a fine movie.
In any case, I like to look at Irreversible like I do musical compositions about tragedies. Krzysztof Penderecki composed Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima for 52 Strings in the 1950's and, though dedicated to a horrific tragedy, it is a masterpiece of atonal modern composition. John Zorn released Kristallnacht, his representation on the Night of Broken Glass (November 9, 1938), in 1993; it is an extremely violent and intense piece of Zorn-patented avant-garde Jewjazz and it is a powerful reflection of the "calm before the storm", the storm itself, and the shock and the rebuilding after the storm. Though both compositions are about destruction, they are extremely beautiful.

Noé has done nearly the same thing, except dedicated his time and passion to a fictional event of similar violence, except directed to one person. Yet, it's not exploitative--it's not an ultra-modern, French ripoff of the exploitation of the Italians or Japanese of the past. This is not Guinea Pig -- instead, like Zorn, Noé created a beautiful piece of art of destruction. It's hard to record, much less film, beautiful destruction, as the risk of it becoming ugly is rather high, but Noé succeeded in filming nihilism itself. And a pretty view of nihilism it is. What is it trying to illustrate? Like the previous examples I have given, it is trying to illustrate an account of a rape, the peace before such an event, and the chaos that ensues afterwards. I don't think there's a specific abstract meaning behind Irreversible, but instead, an event. However, Noé illustrated such an event with a beautifully nihilistic view of the violation and violence that befalls Alex.

I don't find Irreversible as violating to the viewer, or a disgusting movie. Instead, it is beautiful in its own way, and it allows the viewer to experience such a personal horror in a way that is not romantic or exploitative, but just realistic. It is disturbing, but it is not at the same time. I've flinched at the exploitative because it aims to make me flinch. But, instead, Noé's composition never has. It is, like as how Penderecki's composition is an ode to the victims of Hiroshima, an ode to the victims of rape and its byproducts (in Alex's case, the adventure through El Rectum). People might think, "why would anyone want to film a movie about a rape? That is disgusting and wrong!" But again, couldn't you say the same thing about, say, Saving Private Ryan? Actually, war movies are far more disturbing than Irreversible is. War is torture to more than one person, and the movies are a representation of such mass torture, whether it be pychological or physiological -- Irreversible is only the representation of one woman's experiences and the byproducts of such. The representation might be considered gruesome, but there is no other way to compose an ode to a one victim of rape (or victims) -- romanticizing rape is, like romanticizing war, a worse crime than what it is trying to represent.

(Of course, I believe that every war movie I have seen that AIMS to create an ode to the soldiers of a war has romanticized war. There has yet to be a true representation of such horrors, and I think there never will be.)