Irreversible – Near Inaudible Frequency
*Caution: in this document, I discuss themes of sexual assault which is the center point of the film, I must stress this is all done with care and is taken very seriously on my part given the sensitive subject matter*
Here is the track that plays throughout the first 30 minutes of Gaspar Noe’s provocative cult classic Irreversible.
A background on Irreversible
Irreversible is the second feature film by filmmaker and provocateur Gaspar Noe. Irreversible premiered at the Cannes film festival in 2002 and instantly caused outrage and praise, both of which Gaspar thrives in. Below is the IMDb plot synopsis that describes the film in a short and concise way.
‘Events over the course of one traumatic night in Paris unfold in reverse-chronological order as the beautiful Alex is brutally raped and beaten by a stranger in the underpass.’
From that, you can see why the film caused outrage, even though the most difficult scenes in the film to watch were done very carefully to be respectful of the victims of these acts and to be safe for the actors. It is understandable why it upset people. Especially since the length of the aforementioned ‘rape scene’ is nearly 10 minutes in length. It brings up interesting moral dilemmas of ‘is it long for the sake of exploitation’ or to show how the act can cause such trauma on a person and the people that surround them.
The sound design
The music and sound design for Irreversible were handled by Thomas Bangalter (1/2 of daft punk). In terms of music, there is the use of techno and french house. For example, the track ‘Rectum‘ is played at the start of the film in the BDSM gay club. The track features these Shepards tone-esque synths that build this sense of anxiety and dread. As the track continues Thomas brings in these hard techno/hard bass drums that provide a bit more stability to the track. But as they don’t match with the pace of the synths, add even more to the feeling on unease. The drums become more audible at the climax of the scene, in which a character pummels a man’s face in with a fire extinguisher, believing him to be the rapist of his friend (but you do not know that at the time of this scene happening).
Famously the film uses a nearly inaudible 28hz tone that plays throughout the first 30 minutes of the film. This tone is to cause anxiety, vertigo, and nausea to make the first part of the film to be even more uncomfortable. It is an interesting trick and has been pretty common in movies before and since then. But because of the way it is used in Irreversible. It has become infamous. I decided to use this trick in my piece to subconsciously create more unease in the piece.
During the aforementioned rape scene. No music is played. The underpass has an echo to it, that provides an uneasy feeling before the scene takes place. And during the horrendous act. You only hear the actors and the sound design of this underpass. This is a smart move, adding music to a scene like this can take away from the gravity of the situation and would be incredibly inappropriate. So the use of only basic sound design and the actors voices was a good choice and showed how much care went into dealing with a scene as difficult as this.
References
www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Subaudible Track from the movie “Irreversible.” [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuokWUhMGQc
www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Thomas Bangalter – Rectum. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lMArVYkqZ8
Noé, G., Noé, G., Bellucci, M., Cassel, V. and Dupontel, A. (2002). Irréversible. [online] IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290673/?ref_=ttgf_gf_tt