High art or just junk?

I think the film has such staying power, because people are undecided whether it is art or junk. To this day, I'm not even sure how I feel about it.
Irreversible is definitely a polarizing film.

I didn't like the translation either, but I don't think the dialogue was stellar to begin with. It definitely bothered me that the dialogue wasn't more fleshed-out.

Overall, I find the film very disturbing due to the rape scene, but the overall tone and visuality shook me up as well.

High art. It is disturbing, often disgusting and almost unwatchable in places. However it presents us with a certain patriotic spin on French life. The movie seems to scream these messages at us: 'There is something wrong with France! All is not as it seems! France is two countries in one!'
It worried me, I must admit. In effect Bellucci's character represents the potential for beauty, kindness and hope. She stands for the future of France. Symbolically it's smashed to the ground. Whereas Venus de Milo lost her arms, she loses her face ('face' obviously means 'honour'). That's extremely potent. The pretty strange idea of honour vanquished by battle (as indeed honour and patriotism are partners). All that's good is perverted and corrupted in the course of this movie. It's a damning (and quite possibly deeply unfair) critique, if not an indictment, of modern France.
I see this movie as belonging to the tradition of French art cinema, deeply influenced by the movies of Gaspard Noe, especially Seul Contre Tous.

I thought it was great. I say its high art.

It's clearly not junk, the two scenes that define it may be the reason for its cult success but the film has a much greater emotional depth than most extreme cinema, and more than most mainstream cinema actually. I think besides that the film is fascinatingly imaginative, everything from the camera-work, colour scheme, special effects to the soundtrack, format and script. Gaspar Noé's style remains distinct from any other director in cinema.

[deleted]

In France, everything can be call ART!


Classics are names that everyone heard, yet most have never seen!!

[deleted]

I'm French and it's true that we hear some pretty horrible stuff on the news as far as rapes and murders are concerned, but you know, I think it's quite the same everywhere...so the critic of French society or whatever is not really that relevant I guess...a movie like La Haine(1995) by Mathieu Kassovitz is much more concerned with the social disorder that exists in our country...

Here, I'd say that the film is very good in that it really shows violence and rape for what they are: horrible things(and quite dehumanizing as well)...

The desire for vengeance that one feels after such horrible events as rapes and its absence of results at times are also stunning and really powerfully conveyed in my opinion...

Some scenes are very hard to watch yes, due to their length and a camera work which is quite difficult to follow but I think that movies like this are necessary: one should be faced with violence to try and understand it( but not justify it though, and in other cases, fight against it...