Digital Frames and Visible Grain: Spatial and Material Reintegration in Irreversible‪.‬

Gaspar Noe's Irreversible (2002) exploits technologies made available by the shift of post-production effects work from the optical to the digital realm. Such effects work typically focuses on disguising or erasing any signs of the production process (blue screens, wires, tracking marks) in the frame in order to sell the audience a manufactured but "seamless" reality. The following article will argue that, in contrast to such conventional practices, Irreversible uses digital technologies to deconstruct rather than beguile. Indeed, Noe and his team use digital visual effects to subvert the complacent viewer's expectations regarding time, space, and the textual integrity of the projected image rather than market the comforting illusion of a sensorially consistent world. This particular use of digital technologies allows Irreversible to refuse to indulge in delusions of moral certainty or validate the simplistic responses of its protagonists, Marcus and Pierre, and, instead, exposes their ultimate irrelevance, thereby calling into question entrenched strategies of masculinity. Visual Effects: The New Digital Paradigm