18: Martyrs

Martyrs is the kind of film that never lets you get a solid footing. It keeps shifting underneath you. It's not that you don't know what will happen next, it's that you don't even know what can happen next. The film doesn't even let you know what rulebook it's playing with. It seems to make an effort to defy description: If I had to, I would call it a supernatural psychological rape-revenge torture film, but that barely even scratches the surface.

The film follows two best friends: Lucie (Morjana Alaoui), who was abducted and abused as a child, and Anna (Mylene Jampanoi ), who always try to be there for her. Lucie is haunted by a monster that keeps trying to attack her and she always only just gets away. She is convinced that the thing wants her to track down and murder the people who hurt her. When she thinks she found them, she murders them all: A husband, wife, and their two teenage children. By the time Anna gets there, they are all dead. Anna isn't convinced that Lucie shot the right people, but she still tries to hide the bodies for her.

The film's first half is based on two compelling relationships: that of Lucie and the monster, and that of Anna and Lucie. It is suggested early on that the monster is all in Lucie's head, but the exact nature of the thing isn't revealed for quite a while. Anna is convinced that it isn't real. Watching Anna try to help her friend, even when no help is really possible, fills the film with a melancholy that makes it so much more affecting than the average horror film. Anna is in a lot of ways a tragic figure: she wants to help, but all she can do is help clean up the mess.

This doesn't even bring up the film's second half, which is easily the most extreme shift in tone I have ever seen in a film. The first half is a very good film, gripping and exciting and scary. But the film grinds to a halt in the second half. The reason Lucie was tortured as a child are revealed, the monster haunting her is explained, and the plot up to this point is resolved. It's almost like a different movie. It becomes bleak, repetitive and grinding. It almost hurts to watch. Don't misunderstand me, it isn't bad. After this point, the film is designed to be unpleasant. And it succeeds. It is tortuously violent and gruesome, and it seems to just keep going and going and going.

Pascal Laugier, the writer and director of this film, said that he was suffering from Depression when he wrote this film. I hope making the movie helped him work through it, because the finished product has gone on to depress millions of viewers the world over. From the onset, the film sets you up to be shocked. It leads you on, making you feel like you never really know what is going to happen next. And it's a good thing too, because if everyone knew what was coming at the outset there would be quite a few walkouts. Some film's aren't set up to be pleasant. Martyrs doesn't want to thrill you or scare you, it exists on its own plane and defies traditional critique. I would not recommend this film to almost anyone, but it is really something special.