Martyrs

Martyrs is a film that I have watched twice in the space of a few days. It's a film that has been occupying my thoughts heavily, and I can't seem to shake it. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it, but I do know for sure that this is an absolutely staggering piece of cinema, and I'm shocked that I nearly allowed it to pass me by. This wasn't a film I expected to like.

I find that generally various trends and sub genres tend to go stale fairly quick. Asian horror films had been increasingly mundane and formulaic even before the American remakes. Modern gore movies seem to have lost their bang for me as well, and I've been far more interested in the likes of Let The Right One In and [Rec] than any extreme violence. But on the recommendation of a friend, I picked up Martyrs, expecting at the most an above-average gore fest.

What I saw, was something that completely exceeded my expectations in almost every way. It was an absolutely chilling watch, every bit a terrifying psychological trip as much as a brutal and sadistic show of violence. I knew it was going to be hard to watch, but it caught me completely unprepared, disturbing not merely because of the level of violence, but deeply and extremely unnerving on a whole other level. The psychological and the visceral styles are often at odds with each other in horror, and it does seem as if Martyrs has taken elements from different films and put them together in a way that's quite jarring and doesn't come together until the end. The first half reminded me slightly of A Tale Of Two Sisters in places, shifting in tone to a more brutal revenge style film, before descending into one of the most bleak and upsetting pieces of cinema I have ever seen.

Director and writer Pascal Laugier has crafted one of the most effecting horror films you could ever care to watch. The two leads, Lucie (Mylène Jampanoï) and Anna (Morjana Alaoui) are extremely well written characters, played magnificently well by the respective actresses, and are the real triumph of the film. I've said before that for a horror to truly engage the audience, it needs first and foremost characters that engage us, that we feel for and connect to, and Martyrs accomplishes this. Lucie especially is a tragic character, haunted, driven, confused and tormented with survivor's guilt, and the relationship between her and Anna seems so very real. Unlike a number of other horror films I've seen lately, these are characters I feel for and care about. Anna's selflessness and good nature made me feel all the more hurt by the end.

Martyrs is a deeply upsetting and uncomfortable film. It's a thoroughly fantastic one, in that it accomplishes what it sets out to do, and emotionally assaults the audience, it was utterly terrifying, bleak, chilling, disturbing, tragic, made me feel extremely angry and extremely sad. It's stuck with me days after watching it, much like Let The Right One In, Audition, or Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue. Good or bad, this film makes an impact.