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Visual Club

Look Away, Look Away

So there’s apparently a movie called Irreversible coming out now making the outrage-rounds. You see, it apparently features a very graphic anal rape scene. And it’s nine minutes long. Nine. Minutes. Are you very surprised to learn that it’s a French movie?

Now honestly. There’s no fucking hope in hell that I’m going to willingly watch a movie knowing that for nine endless woe-washed minutes, I will be watching an anal rape scene. I’m just not; fuck that, if I want to immerse myself in hopeless anguish, I can always watch Emeril. I can’t get over it. Nine minutes is an eternity of screen time.

Someone once tried to make the argument with me regarding the immortal Caligula that the “what the–?” out-of-nowhere X-rated sex scenes were an experiment in confronting the viewer with how much they could take; forcing them to understand their own mental limitations. Or something. So I watched the movie, and afterwards I was all, “Uh, dude. That’s just porn.” I mean, fine, watch porn if you want, but let’s not gloss it over with any bullshit.

And frankly, even the idea of commiting a graphic rape scene to film is one thing, but to stretch it out to nine minutes just strikes me as a cruel device, just rubbing the viewer’s face in it because . . . I don’t know why because. Because someone could? That’s not good enough for me. And I don’t wanna come across all shrill and dumb and bluenosy; I’m not saying don’t go see it, or it should be banned, or anything of the sort. I’m just saying why I’m not seeing it. I don’t see how it’s anything other than nasty and cynical and almost worst of all, probably totally unneccessary to the film overall.

But as I pointed out, I haven’t seen the film. Knock wood.

I’m waiting for The Core. Now that’s going to be some horrible, insulting filmmaking I can really enjoy!