Le temps detruit tout - Time destroys everything. i cannot help but feel this tagline really hammered home barely minutes after watching "Irreversible". the movie was extremely visceral in its impact thanks in no small amount to the brutal violence it showcased.


i wouldn't spoil the excellent show, but would just say that the movie centres around 2 acts of extreme brutality - one, a scene where a man literally has his head busted open and brains spilled out after being bashed in by a fire extinguisher; and secondly, and arguably more controversially, a 9min long anal rape scene in an underpass where the victim is physically assaulted and left to die afterwards.


as explicit it may be, it was not the violence but the underlying theme that i found the most striking - the destruction that the passing of time leaves in its wake. it is cruel because nothing and no one can be spared from it. like what was shown in the movie, you can be having the time of your life at a party for one moment, and in the next instance you're fighting for your life. remarkable as science may be, it does little to help us fathom what time is. we do not know. and until we come to realise what we do not know, we are powerless in its grasp. we are all victims of time.


i guess this is especially true at a significant juncture such as the passing of a year. memories are the best measure of time because they are stored in an un-intrudable space of one's mind,. yet one's memory is also his greatest weakness for it invariably (and often inexplicably) fails. if i were to pick out any 5 random dates of a random year that has passed, and asked you what you did on that date, would you be able to remember?


i doubt so.


if we are helpless to prevent the passing of time, then every fleeting moment of emotion, however miniscule, is tantamount to the most gut-wrenching acts of violence, rape, murder and revenge that i saw in the movie. simply because they both are Irreversible.