A young girl grows up enduring unthinkable physical and mental abuse. She escapes, and returns to take her revenge.
Sounds like a pretty standard revenge slasher film no? Well it’s actually some of the most extreme cinema I’ve ever seen, and the plot isn’t bad either. Writer-Director Pascal Laugier’s story maintains it’s mystery while also touching on interesting philosophy and social commentary.
What happens to our angst about the afterlife in a society without religion?
Among a class without morals?
What do guilt and faith have in common?
Why young women in particular?
Is pain cinematic?
Is pain spiritual?
I have no idea what technique Laugier was using to cover scenes, for 90% of the film, the camera is moving in some way parallel to the action, either on a small crane, or with a handheld system, keeping your eyes darting over all sides of the screen because you can never guess where the next knife / fist / shotgun blast is gonna come from. Shot mainly on long lenses for a realistic documentary feel, our awareness of what’s around us is also restricted by them.
Despite this franetic style of coverage, if you pay a bit of attention, the shot choices are actually very methodical. Which it has to be to communicate in such an unconventional way.
A fact that would be easy to overlook if you were only considering the editing, which takes a hard left from what you might expect. Laugier only chooses the best takes for performance, and moment-to-moment clarity with very little time for wide shots. Even a simple dinner scene is only shot with focus-pulled close ups and over the shoulders. This style allows time to be compressed or extended with near absolute freedom without you really noticing. If Martyrs had less tension, less horrifying imagery, or worse sound design, then it’d be exhausting to follow, thankfully I couldn’t look away.
All this probably sound a bit uninviting, like I’m describing how great my first experience of heroin was, but if you enjoy the Jason Bourne films, they’re pretty similar in style. Actually Bourne is a lot more choppy, and in some ways less impressive because action in general has only one point of focus at a time, whereas Horror has to manage a point of focus, and another one just out of sight, or in view of the audience but not who we’re following.
This is similarity is why Martyrs can jump between Horror and Slasher conventions with impunity, because Slashers are more action-oriented.
I do have issues with this film, but I must say it’s not really built to be perfect, or to answer any questions, it’s meant to get a rise out of you, to get you thinking and to push certain aspects of cinema as far as it possibly can, which is a lot of fun, even if it can be hard to watch. I had similar feelings about Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible, another film from the edgy French Extremists.
The framing of Anna and Lucie’s friendship in the first 20 minutes or so is inelegant, and doesn’t illuminate anything special about their characters or relationship. The villain’s exposition in the middle just appears out of nowhere, although for the rest of the film she is important, nothing about her beliefs is hinted at beforehand. The ending could have had more interesting directions.
My favourite moment about an hour and a half in, a revelation with just two lines and a single camera movement:
Martyrs isn’t online anywhere (legal), but you can see The Passion of Joan of Arc on Vimeo. Hint hint they’re quite similar.
I haven’t written about the film on ideaskip, but it’s good.
Also the way Martyrs links Horror with femininity can be debated. There are certainly points in it’s favour and also points way way against it.
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