Alexa here with some ephemera to celebrate Monica Bellucci's 50th birthday. I will never forget seeing Irreversible; I was aware of Monica Bellucci before that but nothing prepared me for the impact, terrible as it was, that the film would have. Soon I was consuming every performance of hers (in an attempt to wipe away the imagery of Irreversible), and when I came upon this issue of RES magazine on a newsstand in the city I couldn't resist.
I'm a notorious magazine freak, and a sucker for a good cover; this one got me with its foldout, composite image of Bellucci and director Gaspar Noé.
Photographer Kiino Viland shot Monica Bellucci in Cannes, and shot Gaspar Noé at the Sundance Film Festival. The photos were composited to create the two-room effect (and continuing the dollhouse metaphor by expanding the magazine's title to "residence"). A Black-and-white version was sent to subscribers, while images with intense red tones, reinforcing the mood of Irreversible, made it to the newsstands. (All this reminds me that I miss RES, as it was one of the better magazines celebrating the emergence of digital cinema.)
I think I wanted some answers about what I'd seen from the interview with Noé inside, but no obvious ones came. Noé describes that the film had no script but arose from a desire to work with Bellucci and Cassel and explore ideas of intimacy, violation, revenge, and "erotic melodrama."
Despite loving many other performances Bellucci has given (Malèna!) I fear I will never remove the stain of Irreversible from my mind; it is always what I think of first when her name comes up. But, is that a bad thing? Do you have a favorite Bellucci performance?