With one of his most acclaimed films, Climax, getting a U.S. release this year (and now on Amazon Prime) as well as a brand-new medium-length work, Lux Æterna, premiering at Cannes, Gaspar Noé is staying busy–and he isn’t quite done yet. Set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival is a new cut of his 2002 film titled Irréversible – Inversion Intégrale aka Irréversible – Straight Cut. Starring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel, the original film’s story of two men taking revenge after the rape of a woman was told in reverse chronological order, but now it will be presented in a more conventional manner.
“Why this film? Because the original was told backwards and many viewers, swamped by the anticlockwise structure of the editing, didn’t understand certain aspects of the story,” Noé said. “Presented clockwise, everything is clear and also darker. No dialogues have been cut, nor have any events in the story. Which is why this version is called Straight Cut. Until now, Irréversible was a deliberate puzzle. Now it’s a diptych, like an old record whose B side is the less conceptual mix of the track on side A, but this time with voices that are more audible, rendering the meanings of the words more fatalistic.” He adds, “You will see. Time reveals all things.”
While we still have reservations if this will be more than a Blu-ray extra (as it was originally intended), Noé clearly has a reason for switching things up again. Although no U.S. release has been announced yet, one can see the trailer (via The Playlist) and poster below.
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