In our weekly seriesAnatomy of a Scene's Anatomy, we're going to be taking a look at (in)famous sexscenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around it, and their legacy. This week, we're looking atone ofthe most infamous scenes in one of the most infamous films of the new millennium, Gaspar Noé's 2002 provocation Irréversible.

Like many other films with a reputation for having had a disastrous premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Irréversible's legend loomed large before it ever made its way to America. The film was sold to many savvy indie movie viewers as the heir apparent to the wildly successful and revered Memento, which isn't totally unfair considering that both films unfold in reverse. However, anyone going in expecting a Gaspar Noé film to play out anything like a Christopher Nolan film is in for the shock of their life. In fact, I doubt many viewers would make it past the first ten minutes.

The thing about Irréversible is that it features an act of suchhorrifyingviolence in its first ten minutes, that you feel as if anything that follows couldn't possibly be as off-putting. In the film's opening scene, we meet two men, Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel, the former being placed in an ambulance and the latter, handcuffed and placed in a cop car. The scene that follows, which is actually the scene the precedes it chronologically, finds the two of them frantically searching a wild gay club tastefully called The Rectum for a man known as La Tenia, or The Tapeworm (Jo Prestia), who has done something horrible earlier that night—which we'll get to eventually.

Finally informed that La Tenia is one of a pair of men talking in a corner, Cassel and Dupontel descend on them with Cassel going down hard. On the verge of being sexually assaulted, Dupontel's character attacks the man harming his friend with a fire extinguisher, hitting him over and over again in the face until it is completely caved in—the result of a some digital trickery and old school makeup effects. The result is horrific to witness and was the breaking point for at least 200 of the viewers who fledthe Cannes premiere.

All of this is exacerbated by Noé's choice to use a low frequency background noiseduring the first thirty minutes of the film, inducing all manner of physical discomfort in any audience member seeing the film in a theater with a decent sound system. The barely audible 28Hz sound is known to induce nausea, vomiting, and vertigo in human beings, which is the exact reason Noé so gleefully uses the sound.Unlike many of his provocateur contemporaries like Michael Hanekeand Lars von Trier, Noé is not satisfied unless he gets a visceral reaction from his audience.

This, of course, leads one to wonder if he doesn't trust his horrific imagery enough to do the job. Seeing a man's face obliterated on screen by a fire extinguisher is enough to make one gag, but that low frequency humming will help turn that gag into a full-on evacuation of your stomach. It's a little like Barry Bonds "allegedly" using PEDs; he's already a solid hitter, but he wants the ball to go further and faster than it ever has before. And yes, in case you haven't connected the dots, I'm trying to say that Noé's tactics are a cheat.

Thankfully the low frequency noise is not employed over the film's most infamous scene, a brutal sexual and physical assault on Monica Bellucci in a subway tunnel. Just prior to the film's halfway point—some thirty minutes after the fire extinguisher episode—Bellucci makes her way into the tunnel where she observes La Tenia harassing and beating a transgendered prostitute. It isn't long before he takes more of an interest in the well-dressed and obviously well-meaning woman who had lingered too long during the fight and what ensues are nine of the most painful and torturous minutes ever put on film.

For obvious reasons, we don't house the entire scene on our site—as the only nudity comes after the act is over—but you can watch it, in its entirety below...