One of the great things about watching movies from a list you didn't write, is that occasionally you get to go into a film completely cold. For my money the best way to see any film is with absolutely no knowledge of it at all, but when choosing films for yourself it's all but impossible.
I'm pleased to say that I went into Martyrs knowing exactly nothing. If you like your horror movies brutal, and don't mind subtitles (it's a French film) I STRONGLY recommend that you stop reading. Come back when you've seen it.
The film opens 15 years ago, when a young girl (Lucie) escapes from an abandoned warehouse, where she has been held and tortured.
In the orphanage she is taken to, she is befriended by another girl, Anna, who looks after her.
Seriously. That's enough; if you haven't seen this movie and you are still reading, go away and see it!!!
15 years later, the girls are in a relationship, and Lucie believes she has tracked down her tormentors.
Last chance. If you haven't seen this movie you already know too much. Please. Please. Stop reading. This is genuinely your last chance; from now on I will be speaking to people who have seen the movie, and there will be spoilers.
So, people who have seen the film. You know how shocking and brutal Lucie's shotgun fuled revenge is and you also know there's an (arguably redundant) imaginary dead girl stalking Lucie.
The imaginary dead girl is the movie's weak point as far as I'm concerned. Even though it was never said, right from the first time we encountered the dead girl, I assumed she was imaginary; it was so obvious that she was imaginary, that I had even assumed that we were supposed to assume that she was imaginary... And yet, when Lucie catches Anna cutting herself, it's presented as though it was supposed to be a plot twist, but even Lucie didn't seem surprised (again, I assume that Lucie had seen Anna cutting herself before).
When Lucie kills herself (I did warn you, people who haven't seen the movie) it feels like the story must be drawing to a close, but in many ways it's really only the start of the film.
Come to think of it, in a bizarre way the movie is structured like a Simpsons episode. No, really, bear with me; every single Simpsons episode has 2 basically unrelated stories in it; in the first half there will be a story that sets something else into motion, after the ad break, this new something will become the focus of the episode, and the first story we hardly be mentioned again, save for a possible call-back at the end.
In the first half, Anna is the focus; it's a story about a young woman taking revenge on her abusers, but ultimately finding that revenge didn't help, and that her past still haunts her. This sets in motion the people really behind Anna's abuse capturing Lucie; in the movies second half, the focus is on Lucie, as she is tortured by a group attempting to martyr someone to gain knowledge of the afterlife.
As shocking as Anna's revenge was, the second half of the movie is brutal; for fully ten minuets the movie is literally just a woman being beaten! It would be easy to dismiss the second half as pure torture porn (as I'm sure many critics have) but the story is interesting enough to prevent that; justifying, if not necessitating, the violence.
On the subject if the violence, the gore is excellent and, as is often the case with disturbing movies, used far more sparingly that you might think, most of the worst violence happens off-screen, feeding us just enough visual info for us to fill in the blanks and grow uncomfortable.
I read one review which blasted the movie for being misogynistic, siting that the organisation targets specifically young females. I say poppycock; the organisation chooses women specifically because they are thought to be more likely to possess the specific type of strength needed to become a martyr. This is not a company that holds women in low regard; hell, the leader of the organisation is a woman!
Finally, there's the ending, which I appreciate some people probably found a little too ambiguous, but I though was perfect for the story.
I adore this movie. I saw it, like you, with no knowledge of it quite a few years ago and I was blown away by the power of it. Whoever thinks it's misogynistic is clearly not understanding the movie at all. Really great movie, very much deserving of its position on the list.
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