Look At The Eyes (Martyrs (DVD))

Member Name: plipplop

Product:	Martyrs (DVD)
Date:	18/07/09 (138 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Grisly, violent, disturbing, unpredictable

Disadvantages: Bleak, very depressing

A review of just the film, 'Martyrs' is a French film that was released on region 2 DVD in May 2009.

A young girl named Lucie escapes from captivity and is protected by authorities after what appears to be a horrendous ordeal. In a secure unit, she befriends another young girl named Anna and the two become best friends. Fifteen years later, Lucie is far from recovering from her ordeal and, haunted by the demons of her experience in captivity, she sets about exacting her revenge.

French horror films have, over recent years, staked a reputation for bloody, mindless creativity. Anyone who has seen Switchblade Romance or Frontiers will have some understanding of what to expect from this new genre of nasty filmmaking. Nonetheless, despite having seen and appreciated both of those particular movies, nothing could really have prepared me for the narrative behind Martyrs. Let me convince you that Martyrs is almost certain to be one of the most memorable, haunting and sheer bloody nasty films you will see for a very long time. The cinematic equivalent of being repeatedly kicked in the guts, watching Martyrs is something that could never really be described as entertainment and should, instead, be categorised as the ordeal that it very quickly becomes.

Crossing so many genres, Martyrs could have been so many things. Superficially, it's a torture porn/revenge movie combination, albeit one that makes Hostel look like Mary Poppins, but it passes through into the realms of psychological terror, stalk and slash, a creature feature and then onto something even more unpleasant. Without giving the plot away, it's really difficult to know where to begin. Here we have a girl, Lucie, now grown into a young woman, who has suffered an ordeal that we don't initially understand and now appears to be haunted by a grotesque supernatural visitation that attacks and mutilates her. Somehow linked to Lucie's ordeal in captivity, we don't really understand what it is that is attacking her and before we can dwell upon it the narrative shifts forwards to a brutal sequence in which Lucie exacts her revenge upon those that she believes were responsible. Arguably, the audience isn't expected to believe her and before long that nasty visitation is back, but then it lurches in a rather more grotesque direction before it all draws to an unquestionably bleak conclusion.

Much of the impact is realised on the basis that it is literally just one shock after another. From the film's opening scenes of a mutilated young girl staggering away from a derelict building screaming, to the nightmarish visitation that lurks at the end of her bed and then onto scenes of unspeakable torture and violence, writer/director Pascal Laugier makes it fundamentally clear that there are no barriers that he is not prepared to cross. Ultra-violent from the outset, Laugier seems intent on shocking his audience and even for the hardened horror fan it's rather hard not to be slightly perturbed by the events taking place on screen. It's all so very unexpected and just when you think you might have it figured out, everything lurches off in a new, unexpected and even MORE terrifying direction than before. Laugier generally manages to completely avoid genre convention, to the extent that by the time the film has reached its midway point you just have to conclude that literally anything could happen next.

Laugier's slightly shaky, continually bleak camerawork sets a tone that seems to descend like a depressed cloud over the expectant audience. Occasionally rather frantic, the camera seems to dart in and out of darkened locations, around stairwells, through doorways as though there is a physical manifestation of Lucie's panic dashing around behind her. Most of the filming takes place within the confines of one contemporary house, a remarkable location that Laugier somehow manages to transform from a secure family home, to a desperate hideout and then on to something altogether more ghastly, in between blurring the narrative slightly to turn refuge into captivity and vice versa. It's an inherently curious piece of filmmaking and writing. It really isn't until the film's closing frame that you have some idea of what Laugier's objectives might have been.

Said objectives are largely open to some interpretation, philosophically or at superficial level. The conflict between thought-provoking writing and such deeply-rooted philosophy is not without its issues and certainly the bloody, visceral imagery does little to help the viewer consider the wider implications. It is, however, strangely cunning when considered in retrospect, the victorious conclusion that the audience finds itself so strongly demanding coming in a different shape and form to that which they might have expected. But really, more than anything else, if ever a film were to be described as sinister, then for Martyrs the word was almost exclusively invented. As a study into man's capability to do terrible things to man, it's up there with the best of them and then when you start to consider the deeper meanings, it becomes even more terrifying still.

The performances are really quite astounding. Just as viewers of The Exorcist were aghast at the things that a young Linda Blair was portrayed to be doing, here too, there comes a point when you just can't believe these girls didn't actually suffer for their art. Both Mylene Jampanoi (Lucie) and Morjana Alaoui (Anna) provide an enormously energetic and desperate performance that kind of leaves you out of breath. With the majority of the narrative dwelling on their experiences, this is a demanding picture and both actresses rise to the challenge. It's left to a small, but sinister supporting cast of largely faceless actors and actresses to keep them going, notably Catherine Begin as the sinister co-ordinator of the girls' ordeal.

The trouble is, however, is that it's just too bleak. There's a certain psychology to horror films, albeit a reasonably mainstream one, that is looking for satisfaction in outcome and whilst that doesn't necessarily equate to a happy ending, it's hard to find anything about Martyrs to make you feel better. The violence is brutal and unflinching, the torture is relentless and highly disturbing and the complete lack of (so-called) humanity soon turns this into something of an ordeal. There's an inherent mindlessness to it all, in spite of the presence of some apparently well-educated characters that really, really kicks you in the teeth and even devotees of horror films might find this all a bit much. It's not particularly one thing. It's not like the fire extinguisher moment in Irreversible or the meat hook moment in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's just the relentless, endless ordeal of just about everybody involved and the final revelation pretty much finishes you off. Laugier admits that he wrote the screenplay during a bout of deep depression and it's easy to see that here.

Whatever you expect this to be, I can almost guarantee that it will, even just in part, be something entirely different. You have to admire Laugier for his courage and conviction in producing such a striking, brutal picture but you also have to start to question just what it is that you can draw from such a story. Indeed, there's almost an inevitable need to find nothing in the narrative, simply to detach the viewer from such a horrible situation. Martyrs is and will always remain an acquired taste, the sort of film that will almost certainly develop a cult following but will still serve as a reminder that a horror film without anything to believe in is really just a step too far.

Summary: A young girl exacts her revenge with a rather unexpected outcome