Country:
France/Canada
Recognizable Faces:
Morjana Alaoui
Mylène Jampanoï
Robert Toupin
Patricia Tulasne
Xavier Dolan
Directed By:
Pascal Laugier
I walked into the video store yesterday and told the clerk: "Please, give me something that will fuck me up and ruin my day". He's this nice and chubby guy with a soul patch, a beat-up Chicago Bears cap and a very good taste for films. I think he's the owner. He picked up Martyrs from the shelf and asked me: "Have you seen Irréversible?" Of course I did. Sadly I saw it twice. It's exactly the type of movie I was looking for. Turned out to be a little more than that. Martyrs is gore with a purpose and a vengeance. It's beautifully horrible. It's "Irréversible 2: The Psychological Aftermath"
Lucie (Jampanoï) has been abducted and abused as a child, which clearly sent her down the path of psychological troubles (who wouldn't). She grows up along with her friend Anna (Alaoui) to seek vengeance on her abductors. She does, in a spectacular way (I was never so happy to see Robert Toupin, an actor from the dark ages of Quebec T.V series, getting killed with a shotgun blast). But that's only the beginning of the movie. Lucie murders the whole family in glorious fashion, but her monsters take over as Anna starts doubting the whole process. Since her abduction, she's haunted by that creepy "Grudge-Like" creature, who's the personification of her rage and guilt against the situation (we find out she left another girl there). I can't say more without spoiling the movie. I'll say this. The first hour is the most accurate, gut-wrenching depiction of child abuse and its consequence. And when the sixty minutes mark kicks in, Pascal Laugier takes his movie and puts it in the garbage.
See, after that hour, Laugier decides that the last thirty-nine minutes of his movie are going to be...another movie. Some sort of meaningless gore/fetishist short. He resorts to an old trap of the horror genre and goes the "Oh-But-What-If-This-Was-All-Part-Of-Something-With-A-Greater-Purpose?" People don't abuse kids for a greater purpose. They do it because it makes them feel horny and all powerful. It sucks but it's true. Here, "the greater purpose" isn't a plot twist. It's back-up from the powerful claim made in the first hour and saying: "Oh well, it's just a movie after all". You can't do that. Not after making such a courageous (yet horrible) statement against child abuse. It's a matter of truthfulness. Or you make a movie that adresses an issue (let's say, The Machinist) or you don't (Star Wars was a perfectly fine film without a social critique point).
I asked for a movie that would make me feel like I've battled a prime Lennox Lewis in a phone booth. The first hour does perfectly fine at it, but the last thirty-nine minutes make me feel like they've given me John Ruiz afterwards to make me feel better about myself. It's as soul crushing and powerful as it's irritating in the end. Pascal Laugier had a shot at doing something special here, but he changed his mind halfway through and it makes Martyrs a frustrating experience overall.
SCORE: 69%
