Halloween Film Month: The Sequel, Day 19: Martyrs

by themrmojorisin67

Director: Pascal Laugier

Starring: Morjana Alaoui, Mylène Jampanoï

Released: 2008

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNpDiQimK6U

 

Ah, yes. This film.

Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs is probably one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen. Unfortunately, this is one film where I cannot divulge too much of the plot, even in summary, because every minute there’s a new development, a new reveal, a shocking, visceral scene. What I can say is that it is a film about two friends, Lucie and Anna, and that what starts off the film’s plot is that when she was younger, Lucie had been brutally tortured for unknown, far darker and more bizarre reasons than malice alone. Years later, an older Lucie seeks out revenge, all the while seeing a disturbing vision of a scarred woman who constantly attempts to cut/maim her. Anna is pulled into this disturbing and twisted adventure when Lucie calls her for help. What happens for a majority of the film is some of the most visceral, disturbing imagery ever put onscreen.

And that is probably the best part of the film: every cut, every wound is painful to watch and take in. The torture scenes are especially hard to watch, albeit less gruesome than the scenes involving the scarred woman, whose presence in the film is only to lacerate and torment Lucie. The violence was so intense, this reviewer had to stop the film multiple times just to break up the brutal imagery and to take time to breathe.

The acting is pretty well done here, too. Like the violence, the acting here feels very raw and real. The actress portraying Lucie is fantastic and able to veer between sympathetic and malicious at the drop of a hat. For example, (SPOILERS FOLLOW) the first scene of the film is Lucie running away from a building, dirty and in her underwear, a pathetic sight. The next scene, she is murdering an entire family, who are actually not as innocent as they seem (at least the parents aren’t). Then, after being tormented by the scarred woman, Lucie slices her own throat, dying gruesomely in Anna’s arms, which is a pretty depressing scene to watch, despite what Lucie had done earlier in the film (SPOILERS OVER). Being able to alternate so naturally between intimidating and pathetic is an impressive skill.

The film also knows how to play out scenes to not only build suspense, but also to shock the audience when something unexpected happens. (SPOILERS FOLLOW) For example, in the aforementioned family murder scene, the audience isn’t exactly sure what’s going on at first. After opening with a disturbing scene of Lucie crying and running from her tormentors, the film treats the audience to a happy family sitting down together in the kitchen for a meal. Everyone plays their parts: the siblings tease each other, the parents seem kind and loving to each other and to their children. Then, when the father answers the door, the audience is treated to watching Lucie (the party at the door), systematically gunning down each member of the family with a shotgun in a painfully (this is a good thing, in this case) drawn-out scene. (SPOILERS OVER) Laugier knows how to build suspense and really make every scene hard to watch.

But other than the violence, there isn’t very much going on, plot-wise. But with little events the story has, Martyrs at least tries to build an intriguing mystery, and establishes the concept of a “martyr,” which, according to the film, is someone who has been tortured so much and pushed so close to the threshold of death, they are in a state of being both alive and dead, and can thus tell people about the afterlife. While this part really isn’t touched upon that much in the film, it is still an interesting concept that this reviewer wishes had had more of a presence in the film rather than showing up in the last twenty minutes.

Overall, Martyrs is a film that is extremely hard to watch in one sitting. It is disturbing and incredibly violent, and definitely not for everyone. But unlike shock films like A Serbian Film, Martyrs actually tries to do something more with its characters and story than just shove violence at the audience for almost two hours. It was a film worth seeing, but one I won’t be checking out again anytime soon.

 

Final Score: 6/10

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