You can't see Gaspar Noe's Irreversible without starting a heated discussion with someone else who saw it, or part of it. Many viewers walk out midway through, during the nine-minute scene in which Alex, played by the beautiful Monica Bellucci, is beaten and anally raped in the lurid red light of a Paris underpass as Noé stations his camera and watches.

It would be easy and convenient to dismiss Irreversible as blatant sensationalism. But Noe's bruising film is too artfully crafted to write off…