Martyrs (2008)
Martyrs is one of THOSE horror movies, the kind of movie u can only watch once & the whole time you’re going 😬😫🤮 & when it’s done u walk around aimlessly & ask yourself “do I actually like horror movies or am I just a masochist?”. Anyway, so I watched it twice, let’s talk about it!
Martyrs starts as a kind of mystery revenge thriller & then goes wildly off the rails in the 2nd & final acts. As Lucie (Mylène Jampanoï) + Ana (Morjana Alaoui) struggle to understand Lucie’s violent childhood, the forces of dogmatic ideology create insurmountable barriers to their quest. It’s so gory & violent, finding insta-appropriate still frames was a big challenge.
Writer-director Pascal Laugier really made a name for himself with Martyrs, a movie that is commonly grouped under the New Extremism (or New French Extremity) sub genre in Europe throughout the 00’s. These movies are known for extreme violence, gore & nihilist plots — in other words, everyone on screen will suffer horribly & die. While it’s easy to write off Martyrs as just another torture-porn misery fest, this one stands apart because it directly addresses the torture in its themes. Underneath the blood & gore, the love between the two women makes these characters real, & because you believe in their love, the violence hurts so much more.
Martyrs is a movie about pain, about the meaning of pain, about who gets to inflict it & who has to bear it. It’s no coincidence that a queer love story inturrpts a traditional family unit, only to expose the rotted roots underneath the surface. Though there’s no specific religion on screen, the final act is a total condemnation of the senseless violence enacted in the name of a higher purpose, a purpose that proves meaningless as soon as it’s achieved. It’s the inherent horror of fascism — you sacrifice all your humanity in the name of a fictitious world, and destroy any chance at actual love or joy in the world that already exists.
*
#horror #bodyhorror #extremehorror #martyrs #film #filmmaking #filmmaker #cinemaphile #films #filming #filmcamera #filmcommunity #filmmakers #filmproduction #filmlife #cinema #cinematography #filmphotographer #moviereview
