Irréversible

Told backwards in thirteen unbroken takes, and the first reels use a sub-bass tone around 27Hz, below the audible range, which produces nausea. That is a documented design decision, not a rumour.

Roughly 200 people walked out of the Cannes premiere and a number required medical attention. The opening twenty minutes, in a club, are shot with a camera that will not hold still and are properly disorienting.

The nine-minute assault in the underpass is filmed in one static take from floor level, with no cutting and no score, and Noé has said the intention was to make it impossible to watch as spectacle.

Because the structure runs backwards, the film ends in sunlight with two people happy and a woman who has just found out she is pregnant, which is the cruellest thing about it.

The tagline was that time destroys everything. The film means it structurally, not thematically.