TIFF Review: MARTYRS

Reader Comments

1. JustinD 08/24/2008 @ 1:32pm

   “And when Lucie finds the people who she BELIEVES captured her fifteen years.”

   I’ve seen that summary phrased in a similar way in a few place, I hope that’s I haven’t robbed myself of a shock moment, but if it is, it can still go in plenty of interesting directions.

2. ChevalierAguila 08/24/2008 @ 3:50pm

   A slasher flick with brains? We’ll see.

3. M@rc 08/25/2008 @ 3:23am

   Isn’t this just another torture movie we were so sick of? The name seems to suggest it anyway.

4. Todd Brown 08/25/2008 @ 6:56am

   Chevalier:  I wouldn’t call it a slasher.

   And M@rc ... I see where you’re coming form but there’s a lot more going on here than that.  It can be viewed on that level but I think it’s a very deliberate play on some larger issues that I can’t really dip into at this point as they’d be spoilers ...

5. hmmm 09/06/2008 @ 10:50am

   I would agree that Martyrs is a intelligently structured movie.
   But I got the feeling that its content just suggest an intelligent subtext and substance. The story indicates some greater ideas, but leaves them hanging in the air for a broader interpretation. A viewer with an active imagination could take all those ideas and tie them together, but if you just take what you get, one can also view all those suggestions as an excuse for showing extreme physical an psychological violence.

6. san ku kai 09/08/2008 @ 12:25pm

   Hmmm, I kinda agree with Hmmm (excuse my pun, I just couldn’t resist)

   I actually took a weekend off to Paris (it’s ridiciously close, really) to go see it (and there I also got to catch ‘Sakuran’ on the big screen, and do other cool stuff, and then some ...).

   Now I’m a somewhat a mixed believer in the French horror boom, I love what Alexandre Aja has done, “A l’Interieure” was very close but no cigar (no story to tell?), “Frontière(s)” very much impressed the hell out of me and i was very much hoping and expecting the same from “Martyrs”.

   I will keep it brief and say that the direction and interpretation were very impressive, and a “prix d’audace” wouldn’t be out of place here ...
   But somehow in the end, I have a feeling there was potential for even more. I have mixed feelings about where it all leads to ...

   But just go check it out, if you get the chance, and try to avoid pre-knowledge of the contents ... more an unforgettable experience than a big bang/shock ...

7. louisplunchbox 09/26/2008 @ 5:27pm

   Sorry I’ve been hassling people on other Martyrs review threads about this - but what is the intelligent subtext and at the heart of this film? If anyone could enlighten me, I’d be grateful. I found Martyrs to be a completely senseless film that doesn’t even withstand it’s own affectations toward some kind of logic. Hostel and The Inside, as brutal as they were, at least didn’t insult the audience by suggesting that the violence depicted had some kind of intellectual purpose.

8. Todd Brown 09/27/2008 @ 11:53am

   Well, my own read on it is that Martyrs is taking an issue that we tend to attach to religious fanaticism and placing it in our own back yard.  When you hear about martyrs these days it’s almost purely in the context of muslim extremism and it’s VERY easy for people to brush it off and put it down to extreme elements within religion, that it’s something that just happens ‘over there’ and that we are somehow too civilized for that to ever occur here.

   What Laugier is arguing is that this sort of impulse is not about religion at all, that all that is required is a person with power, resources, and a disregard for other people’s well being that allows them to create and discard ‘victims’ in their quest to get what they want.  The opening act is about what this pursuit costs in human terms over all, the second act is about what it costs this one person, the finale is about how incredibly selfish the whole pursuit is in the first place - the supposed ‘leader’ doesn’t care at all about her followers, she simply uses them to soothe her own insecurity and then checks out.

   Looked at from that perspective I think it’s a pretty damning critique both of Bush and the neo-con movement and the extremist elements in the middle east.  It’s power politics broken down to their most basic terms.

9. Kurt Halfyard 09/27/2008 @ 12:17pm

   An interesting read on things Todd, however, my greatest criticism is that Lagier keeps his cards too close to the vest, and none of this can be processed during the viewing of the film.  There are times to hide the plot/narrative, even thematic elements of a film to increase impact, a film and subject like Martyrs (or for that matter, Funny Games or Dear Wendy or Audition) should not play coy with its audience (In my opinion) and that is a big weakness of the film.  It puts ‘cool’ before ‘dialogue’.

10. Todd Brown 09/27/2008 @ 2:34pm

    I get where you’re coming from but I think if you push the point to clearly it breaks down into propaganda pretty quickly ...

11. louisplunchbox 09/29/2008 @ 11:28am

    Todd - my contention would be that the film fails as an indictment of extremism simply because the narrative device that it uses to distance itself from “torture-porn” labeling actually renders it an inadvertent endorsement of the behavior it intends to malign. If the cult are supposed to represent Bush and the neo-con movement, we would infer that Anna’s character has a conflicting ideal that she wishes to preserve in the face their oppression… but she doesn’t. In fact, the film goes on to validate the cults’ aims which confuses the issue even further by adding creedence to their tenuous claims. Another problem is that the cult (and the film), don’t offer any alternatives to the brand of extremism they exact - part of what makes the neo-cons scary is that they espouse a kind of political belief that exploits what is, at heart, a set of sound principles. Here, the cult takes extreme measures based on an already extreme set of utilitarian ideas which does little to advance anything that we don’t already know: extremism is really messed up.
    Since Laugier doesn’t take any real time to deal with the “how” or the “why” of that extremism, only the “what” - all you’re left with is a kind of empty gesture that felt more to me like an excuse to have long, protracted torture sequences than anything else. Consequently, I found the film to be as dishonest, self-serving and misguided as the extremists its allegedly critiquing.

12. Todd Brown 09/29/2008 @ 12:18pm

    Well, I disagree pretty wholeheartedly that you need to offer ‘solutions’ or ‘alternatives’ to have a valid or effective critique and REALLY disagree when you say that Laugier is endorsing any of this behaviour.  There’s not a single shot in this thing that you’re meant to enjoy.

13. louisplunchbox 09/30/2008 @ 9:44am

    My point wasn’t that the film HAS to offer alternatives and I didn’t say it had to propose solutions, but that if the cult is supposed to be a critique on fundamentalism / extremism in general or the neo-con establishment it’s an extremely shallow one at best.
    Now there’s a potentially cool notion in the idea of Anna representing the US electorate that willingly subjugated itself to exploitative neo-con (the cult’s) designs for 8 years without mass protest - but unfortunately that allegory is so bogged down in quasi-religious rubbish that you have to take several extremely long steps to get to it. Not to mention that the outcome of the film basically prevents that reading from being substantive.

    **** POTENTIAL SPOILERS ****

    This goes back to the endorsement point. I’ll agree endorsement was probably an unfair choice of words, but the film does affirm the cult’s goals. According to the narrative of the film, the cult is successful in their endeavors and they are correct in their assertions vis-a-vis the results that their torture regime produces. Anna’s torture is portrayed as having purpose - not just by the cult, but by the film itself.
    It’s unclear what exactly Laugier’s trying to achieve other than some kind of “cool” twist that excuses us having sat through a brutal 15 min torture sequence. It’s cheap and transparent and does nothing to advance whatever intellectual ideas he might be proposing (though I’m not convinced there were any to begin with).
    Put it this way - if as a director, you’re going to subject an audience to that kind of graphic violence and then suggest that there is a “message” behind it, it behooves you not to half-ass your ideas and conclusions about what it is you’re trying to say.

14. Todd Brown 09/30/2008 @ 9:52am

    acknowledging that torture is effective is not the same thing as endorsing it. And it is effective. Read fox’s book of martyrs and you’ll find much worse than anything in this film.

15. louisplunchbox 09/30/2008 @ 10:42am

    Um I already agreed that endorsement wasn’t a fair choice of words. But again you’re missing my point - the film posits that this torture has an actual “purpose” and that Anna achieves a state of grace through it, something that kind of flies in the face of a “critique” about extremism.

    *** SPOILERS ***

    As for torture being “effective”, you have to qualify that statement. The film actually acknowledges how ineffective torture is, given that half the cult’s subjects go crazy (a huge lapse in logic when you think about it given that the cult can only rely on what their subjects say about the afterlife).

    I’m fully aware that there were far greater atrocities inflicted on people in the middle ages than were depicted in this film. I’m from England and learned in good enough detail about the historical persecution of protestants (among others). I’m not sure that it’s relevant to my understanding of the film however, given that the film skews the concept of martyrdom to serve its own devices (which would be fine by me if that creative license was used cogently).

    Anyway we’ve probably exhausted this argument. Thanks for your insights - some of the more interesting I’ve seen - even if I can’t agree with them.

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