Movie Review: Martyrs (2008)
Written by Christopher Jatowtt Tuesday, 26 January 2010 09:45
Transfiguration through Torment
A review of Martyrs (2008)
Starring Morjana Alaoui and Mylène Jampanoï
Written and directed by Pascal Laugier
Don’t you hate buying gifts for people who already have everything? Having to turn malls and gifts shops upside down in order to find that perfect artifact of sentiment? Don’t you feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment when you finally happen upon said artifact? Warm fuzzies are exchanged and fond memories that last forever are created. Martyrs is that kind of gift…kind of.
Though you are certainly not likely to forget it once you have seen it, “warm” and “fuzzy” are two words I would not use to describe this film. Martyrs is Pascal Laugier’s gift to the horror fan that thinks (s)he’s seen everything. Get ready. You haven’t.
It is at this point, gentle reader, that I must tell you if you have any intention at all of seeing Martyrs you watch the film prior to reading the rest of this review. For the movie will be best enjoyed the less you know about the plot and its staccato pace of many twists and turns. The movie’s been out on R1 DVD for almost a year now, however, and if you get the majority of your horror news from the Internet, you’d surprise the socks off of me if you managed to avoid hearing about this one. The basics: it’s extremely violent, incredibly nihilistic and has horror fans polarized in “love it or hate it” camps.
Martyrs opens in the early 1970’s with a scene of a 12 year old girl named Lucie Jurin (Jessie Pham) escaping a torture chamber housed within some sort of abandoned industrial complex where she was apparently psychologically, emotionally, most very definitely physically, but apparently not sexually, abused. This is revealed through a bit of faux documentary footage shot by the psychologists entrusted with treating Lucie, keeping her safe, and trying to get her to proffer more information regarding exactly who hurt her so horribly. Apparently not very adept at their chosen professions, the doctors are unable to get Lucie’s repressed memories to surface, keeping the identity of her tormentors in the dark. Worse still, a feral apparition, a spectral remnant from her days in the torture chamber that she can barely recount, stalks Lucie. The ghostly creature is apparently capable of inflicting some very real, physical harm upon her.
Lucie finds solace in the company of Anna Assaoui (Erika Scott), another young girl and fellow resident of the institute for abused, unstable, and mentally challenged children. Anna becomes almost a mother figure to Lucie, laying down the foundation of a thinly veiled, though interesting, quasi-lesbian relationship that figures prominently throughout the course of the film. Anna helps dress Lucie’s wounds and even helps keep them a secret from the facility’s doctors at the frantic girl’s request.
Flash forward 15 years later. We suddenly find ourselves at the breakfast table of a typical, upper middle class, French family of four, complete with a laid back dad, nagging mom, and a bickering 18 year old brother and pre-teen sister. Breakfast, and an argument involving big bro’s educational goals, is interrupted by the doorbell. Dad answers the door and is promptly blown away by a shotgun blast for his troubles. The hooded assassin then makes quick work of the rest of the family in a jaw-droppingly brutal sequence involving quite a few bursts of the red stuff…the identity of the killer? Why, it’s Lucie (now played by Mylène Jampanoï). She has just murdered the people she believes were responsible for the atrocities she endured 15 years ago (in addition to their children). Shortly thereafter, Anna (now played by Morjana Alaoui) arrives to again fulfill her role of comforter and protector, only to discover that Lucie is still plagued by the physically abusive, slash wound covered phantasm from her youth, even though she has quelled her own (and apparently its) desire for violent retribution. Oh yes, and did I mention that everything I have just summarized occurs within the first fifteen minutes of the film? The following hour and 25 minutes reveals the true nature of Lucie’s ghastly and savage tormentor (in one of the film’s more inventive twists), the actual role played in all of it by the family she has killed, the identity and motives of her childhood torturers, and the insidious presence of those who are now prepared to teach Anna their methods…and the purpose behind them.
As fresh and uncompromising a film as Martyrs may be, it is still not a movie for everyone. The level of violence is pretty over-the-top. Throats are slit, bodies are flayed, and faces are beaten to bloody pulps, all in unflinchingly gory detail. The final act features 20-25 of the most grueling minutes I’ve witnessed in a horror film. Such scenes have garnered comparisons to the Saw and Hostel franchises (and the usual reports of people fleeing during screenings, vomiting into their hands) but in my opinion they are superficial. Scenes of torture and mutilation seem to be the point of the “gorenography” subgenre stalwarts, as evinced by Saw’s Rube Golberg-esque traps and Hostel’s themed torture chambers. The point of Martyrs seems to be more the psyche-shattering effect that systematic torture can have on a person, that and the utterly nihilistic and ambiguous ending (which I will not give away here) that drove me crazy for days after I finished watching the movie. The movie also sports a few plot points previously found in films such as Rosemary’s Baby and The Nameless as well as imagery that would find itself right at home in the world of Hellraiser. It explores what exactly constitutes a martyr as opposed to a victim (with a definition all its own, but more on that later) as well the ever-popular theme of the privileged classes preying on those who are not as well off (something it admittedly shares with Hostel). This class struggle seems to be a hot topic with the auteurs of the new French “spew-wave.” Both of the transgressive French films Inside (2007) and Frontier(s) (2007) are set against a backdrop of the riots that occurred in the country a few years back when its government took a decidedly conservative swing. The movie has also been compared to more art house (though just as disturbing) fare like Pasolini’s Salo. Despite its existential leanings and uncertain ending, however, the amount of grue and dread-soaked atmosphere place the film squarely in the realm of extreme genre cinema.
***ALERT***THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH CONTAINS SPOILERS***
Although I thoroughly enjoyed the film, I did have a few nitpicks I wanted to mention. On a minor note, I was somewhat frustrated by Anna’s refusal to leave the house during the end of the first act and the beginning of the second act. The perfect time to alert the authorities and get the hell out would have been after finding “La Suppliciée” in the hidden chambers beneath the house following Lucie’s suicide. Anna hadn’t committed any of the murders and the family that had been living there had clearly been up to something unspeakable. Instead, she hangs out for what seems like days, leaving herself wide open to her eventual capture. But I guess if she didn’t, then we wouldn’t have had a movie now, would we? I also had a difficult time wrapping my head around the film’s definition of a martyr. I always felt that in order to be a martyr, one needed to be suffering or dying for some sort of cause. This aspect of the definition seemed to be lost on the shadowy cult in the film, as their victims were forced, and then abused, into submission rather than offering themselves up willingly. The film embraces more the word’s Greek origin as it referred to “a witness.” How you choose to interpret that depends greatly on how you interpret the film’s finale.
***END OF SPOILERS***
These are minor quibbles compared to how I feel about this movie as a whole. This is a serious, uncompromising film. I wouldn’t go into it expecting a fun, popcorn movie, thrill-ride. It features some extreme imagery, cold and savage violence, as well as some questions that might keep you up at night even longer than the scenes of splatter do. If you think you can handle it, WATCH THIS MOVIE! If you are easily freaked out, stick to fun stuff like the Final Destination franchise. Martyrs will sick with you long after the credits have rolled.
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