Rating of
3/4
Uncomfortable But Compelling
cockney0_1 - wrote on 06/08/09
There is a tagline in the trailers for the original 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' that says 'This movie is relentless in it's attempt to drive you out of your mind', and although that movie did scare audiences, it was a good scare; a throw-your-popcorn-in-the-air scare, with a tongue placed firmly in cheek with regards to the terrors it presented. Instead, that tagline should be applied to 'Martyrs', as it's fairly doubtful as to whether there has been a movie that makes it's audience feel so uneasy yet, at the same time, is so very compelling.
'Martyrs' begins with a news flashback to 1971, where a young girl called Lucie has escaped from captivity and notified police. Lucie has been deprived of proper food and severely beaten, but there are no signs of any sexual traumas, and she is in such an emotional state that she is unable to tell the authorities about who was holding her or what really happened. Lucie is put into a care home where she meets and befriends a young girl called Anna, who also gets quizzed by the authorities as to whether Lucie has revealed anything. What Anna doesn't tell them, because Lucie has made her promise not to, is that Lucie gets visited by a snarling, female figure who attacks and mutilates her.
Fast forward fifteen years, and the Belfond family are having the usual early morning family squabbles. Brother and sister are fighting while dad is making breakfast, and mum is in the garden fixing the water supply. After answering a knock at the door, dad is killed by a shotgun-wielding Lucie, who then proceeds to blast away at the rest of the family, only stalling at the son to ask if he knows what his parents have done. Having murdered the whole family, who Lucie believes were the ones who tortured her, Lucie then sees the creature who has been haunting her since childhood. Although trying to placate the creature by murdering the family, the creature attacks Lucie with her own cut-throat razor, in one of the most violent and unsettling scenes in the movie. Lucie is then joined by Anna, who begins to clear up the mess and dispose of the bodies in the garden, discovering along the way that the mother isn't quite dead. Anna tries to sneak the mother out of the house, but is discovered by Lucie who proceeds to smash the mother's skull with a hammer. The creature appears again and Lucie shows the creature that the mother is dead. It is now that we learn the creature is in fact a woman who was being tortured in the same building as Lucie, and that Lucie could have helped the woman escape when she managed to break free, but didn't. The creature starts to cut Lucie's arms, but a revealing shot from Anna's perspective shows that Lucie is in fact cutting herself and that the creature is imaginary. Lucie believes that murdering the torturers would somehow stop the creature from appearing, but unfortunately Lucie still sees it and, seemingly unable to take any more, kills herself.
But it doesn't end there, as Anna is about to find out. Discovering a secret lair of chambers under the house, she comes across another female victim, who is blindfolded with a metal visor that has been riveted into her head. Anna takes the woman upstairs and tries to clean her up and remove the visor, but, due to the traumatic events that have obviously happened to her, the woman freaks out and tries to cut off her own arm, after which she is shot in the head by a team of soldier-type people who have entered the house. Immediately seizing Anna, they drag her down to the underground chamber where she is visited by a mysterious middle-aged woman who informs Anna that Lucie and the other victim were in the process of being made martyrs - people who, when tortured to the point where the body gives up resisting, achieve a level of transcendence and are able to see into the afterlife. As women make better martyrs, it is they who are experimented on. Of course, Anna is then the next person subjected to the vile tortures that the new occupants of the house inflict.
To find out what happens, you'll have to watch the movie, but needless to say if what has happened so far hasn't put you off your dinner, then the final thirty minutes of 'Martyrs' will certainly will. And if the final thirty minutes doesn't at least make you cringe, then you are officially dead, as this is probably the most reactive movie you'll ever be able to rent from your local Blockbuster. If your idea of hardcore violence begins and ends with 'Hostel' then think again, as 'Martyrs' pushes the envelope even further, and that isn't to say that the gore is ever excessive or out of context. 'Hostel' is indeed much gorier, but that movie was made by a couple of filmmakers who are known to be excessive and exploitative, and in the end 'Hostel', for all it's pretentions to Grindhouse, is a Hollywood movie, albeit filmed to look cheap and tacky. This movie pushes the boundaries by suggesting that human nature is so depraved, so desperate to achieve knowledge about that which is beyond our existence, that so-called 'normal' people would stoop to any level to achieve it. Fortunately, there is salvation at the end - not for Anna, but for the viewer, who gets to see the results of what happens when Anna achieves martyrdom, and what it does to the person there to witness it.
French cinema has been very busy of late, producing such graphic nasties as 'Frontier(s)' and 'Switchblade Romance', but where these movies are new twists on old themes, 'Martyrs' is strikingly original. The story moves along at a steady pace, and the lightning quick edits and unusual camera angles add to the feeling of frenzied madness that is coming from the screen. In contrast to that, some of the scenes near the end, when Anna is taking the full force of the brutality being dished out, are very beautifully shot, despite what is happening. The lingering shots of a desperate Anna, having been tortured, mutilated and taken the worst that humanity can offer, are almost poetic in their execution (!), and give the viewer that extra emotional punch, as if any were need.
'Martyrs' is uncomfortable, disturbing, humourless and mean-spirited. It is also competently acted and inventively shot, with a tight script and has probably some of the most realistic displays of violence and it's effects ever seen on film. It isn't an enjoyable movie but, at the same time, it is a movie not to be missed, and for once, it is a movie that is deserving of the title 'video nasty'.
