DVDs
Martyrs (2008) DVD
May 25
Pascal Laugier
Starring Morjana Alaoui, Mylène Jampanoï, Catherine Bégin
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Ever since its festival run Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs has proven to be a truly divisive film, like Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible before it. While Martyrs almost matches that film in its unrelenting brutality it shares none of its technically inventive direction. Instead it comes across merely as a French take on the seemingly inexhaustible stream of American torture-porn movies and so makes for grim, joyless viewing.
It’s a film of two halves, the first being a twisted revenge attack on a seemingly inconsequential bourgeois French family. This part at least delivers tension and truly realistic extreme violence – heads are routinely smashed in, throats and wrists are cut open, and the whole family unit (including kids) is viscously dispatched via shotgun by two disturbed girls, Anna and Lucie.
The second half sees Anna make a shocking discovery in the basement of the family’s house: a sect that is obsessed with studying the act of martyrdom. Here the film tries to make some pompous point about religion, but the protracted coda of torture employed is incredibly tiresome and unrelentingly grim, and your reaction to the conclusion of all this gruelling bloodletting may depend on your views on religion. Martyrs displays shades of the far superior Audition in its unpleasantness and unexpected plot-twists, but shares none of its narrative inventiveness or transgressive gender portrayals.
Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs is a brutal, stripped down, seventies style, psychological headfuck of a film, made by a filmmaker wanting to push the cinematic envelope as well as the audiences buttons.
As far as horror goes, this is a shocking, bloody and unforgettable masterpiece depicting hell on earth, showcasing the levels of depravity human beings are prepared to go to further their personal beliefs.
Indeed, the film is one of two halves; the first is shocking, frightening, and brutally engaging, but the second, unlike many films labelled within the bizarrely titled ‘torture-porn’ canon (do people really feel aroused whilst watching torture?), feels like a sudden reversal on the prior violence committed. By being so gruelling, almost tedious, and horrific in its relentless and monotonous execution, it drags out pure, raw emotional feelings of helplessness and sadness from the audience at having to witness the plight involving the central protagonist. Like Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible, by being truly painful and harrowing to watch, it engages the viewer to question their participation in such horrific activity, to hopefully think about the frankly irresponsible, disposable and sugar-coated violence we are so used to seeing in (particularly) contemporary Hollywood cinema. The idea that violence works best when not shown is a fallacy and wrong; violence should be shown in its entirety; violence needs to be hard to stomach, to disgust, not glorify or to be swept under the carpet without leaving any effect or consequence.
We need a brave film such as this, that has the power to remind us every so often about the harsh reality of violence after having watched popcorn flicks such as the recent comic book adaptation Wanted, in which in one sequence a train filled with hundreds of innocent people is derailed and destroyed without a second thought; where human life seems tantamount to very little.
Despite admiring or possibly hating the film, by simply dismissing Martyrs as a bloodbath without brains, or unfairly labelling it as another torture-porn film is plain laziness as it deserves to be given far more thoughtful consideration; even the ending, pretentious or otherwise, does make the viewer consider the possible ramifications of what they have just viewed.
French horror is undoubtedly the leading purveyor in the current climate; films that are created by filmmakers that seem to live and breathe the genre, that fulfil the conventions required for fans of viscera and relentless energy, and unlike the mostly turgid American horror output, the films are based around decent plots, story, and most importantly an emotional backbone, something which the hollow American horror films generally lack.
Martyrs is a reminder of what a real horror film is supposed to be, and not the typical pseudo ‘horror’ junk featuring a bunch of insipid, vacuous teens fresh off shows such as The Hills or Gossip Girl; it is undeniably tough and brutal, and not for the faint hearted, but is an incredible emotional experience that, just like Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible, is a film that won’t be forgotten in a hurry after having viewed it, a film so haunting and disturbing, that having actually witnessed it once provokes the terrifying thought to consider actually sitting through it for a second viewing at a later date.
Cinema is not just about having a joyful experience; it also has the much needed capacity to force us to face and conquer emotions that we may not want to deal with, something that many of the best films with longevity tend to achieve.
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