Only 2 left? How did this happen? Guys, what am I going to review after this? I'm gonna need suggestions, so get posting those comments.
Please note, I am reviewing the original 2008 French film, not the 2015 American remake. I will refer to the remake only once, right now. IT IS TERRIBLE. It took everything so heartbreaking and bleak about the original, changed the entire story except their names, dolled it up with more main characters and a sense of hope, and then s**t it all out as only a Hollywood remake of a fantastic foreign film can do.
Anyway, Martyrs. The plot revolves around 2 young females, who both grew up in care with each other. Lucie and Anna, Lucie was abducted and tortured as a young child, and has been trying to find the family that caused her so much pain to take revenge. She hopes to get rid of the creature that has been following her ever since, a creature that attacks her. Unfortunately, when she does find them, everything goes really wrong. And if you haven't seen Martyrs yet, you should really stop reading and go check it out, because I'm about to spoil it for you hugely. No one can see Lucie's demon except her, it forces her to self mutilate, and even after she gets revenge, it won't let her go, eventually killing her. And then Anna realises that the family were part of a crazy cult intent on abusing people to martyrdom. Wow.
Martyrs looks great, with a washed out look that makes it feel like the bleak film it is. The score works really well to build up tension. When we look at Lucie's demon, it's actually very frightening. (I thought, when I first saw this, that it was gonna be a ghost film...) A visual that is very important for the first half of the film, it shows the audience the guilt that has followed Lucie since she escaped but could not save the others.
So, Anna finds a strange place under the house that shouldn't exist. Inside she finds a girl, nude except for what looks like a metal chastity belt and a metal blindfold. She is covered in cuts and bruises. The metal blindfold was stapled onto her skull. We then get a rather hard to watch scene where Anna removes the blindfold. During this and the scene that follows immediately, we get such a great look at the special effects in this film, which are fantastic.
What follows is a gruelling 30 minutes of physical and psychological torture. And gruelling in the right way. Martyrs is a hard film to watch, because it is so hopeless. The violence is very matter of fact, it isn't emotional, or enjoyable. We see Anna drained of all will to fight, accepting of her fate. There is no motive, no way to understand this, it is just brutal torture by sick individuals.
The acting is superb, which just adds to the misery. Anna, played brilliantly by Morjana Alaoui, is so helpless. She is force fed, beaten, abused and eventually skinned alive, all in the pursuit of Martyrdom. Alaoui plays this role painfully well. We see great performances from the rest of the cast, especially her abusers, who play their parts with such disregard. The lack of emotion really does make them seem so evil.
The pacing is fantastic, none of this film drags. It feels like a whirlwind of suffering. It's unusual for a film that is so hard to watch to be so well paced. There are no boring sections, it's a struggle to watch, but it is never boring. The viewer is taken through several different types of violence all seamlessly. We see morally questionable murder by a damaged girl, then we see violence against an innocent which seems to cement that Lucie was correct to get her revenge, and then we see violence, although mostly not gratuitous, against a character we have formed a relationship with that has no reason.
The biggest issue with the film is the plot, it is quite convoluted and in the end can be seen as quite far fetched. Anna reaches martyrdom, she tells the older lady, who is in charge of the operation, what she sees. We never actually find out what she sees. This lady then kills herself. The plot really does distract from the gritty realism of the film, which is a real shame. Although, it may signify that only the victim has suffered enough to know the truth, and even the viewer must earn the right to know what the afterlife is.
Overall, Martyrs is a brilliant film, with some really hard to watch scenes, a definite must see for any disturbing cinema viewer. I recommend this one hugely! It's fantastic, if you can look past a weird plot.
9/10
Please note, I am reviewing the original 2008 French film, not the 2015 American remake. I will refer to the remake only once, right now. IT IS TERRIBLE. It took everything so heartbreaking and bleak about the original, changed the entire story except their names, dolled it up with more main characters and a sense of hope, and then s**t it all out as only a Hollywood remake of a fantastic foreign film can do.
Anyway, Martyrs. The plot revolves around 2 young females, who both grew up in care with each other. Lucie and Anna, Lucie was abducted and tortured as a young child, and has been trying to find the family that caused her so much pain to take revenge. She hopes to get rid of the creature that has been following her ever since, a creature that attacks her. Unfortunately, when she does find them, everything goes really wrong. And if you haven't seen Martyrs yet, you should really stop reading and go check it out, because I'm about to spoil it for you hugely. No one can see Lucie's demon except her, it forces her to self mutilate, and even after she gets revenge, it won't let her go, eventually killing her. And then Anna realises that the family were part of a crazy cult intent on abusing people to martyrdom. Wow.
Martyrs looks great, with a washed out look that makes it feel like the bleak film it is. The score works really well to build up tension. When we look at Lucie's demon, it's actually very frightening. (I thought, when I first saw this, that it was gonna be a ghost film...) A visual that is very important for the first half of the film, it shows the audience the guilt that has followed Lucie since she escaped but could not save the others.
So, Anna finds a strange place under the house that shouldn't exist. Inside she finds a girl, nude except for what looks like a metal chastity belt and a metal blindfold. She is covered in cuts and bruises. The metal blindfold was stapled onto her skull. We then get a rather hard to watch scene where Anna removes the blindfold. During this and the scene that follows immediately, we get such a great look at the special effects in this film, which are fantastic.
What follows is a gruelling 30 minutes of physical and psychological torture. And gruelling in the right way. Martyrs is a hard film to watch, because it is so hopeless. The violence is very matter of fact, it isn't emotional, or enjoyable. We see Anna drained of all will to fight, accepting of her fate. There is no motive, no way to understand this, it is just brutal torture by sick individuals.
The acting is superb, which just adds to the misery. Anna, played brilliantly by Morjana Alaoui, is so helpless. She is force fed, beaten, abused and eventually skinned alive, all in the pursuit of Martyrdom. Alaoui plays this role painfully well. We see great performances from the rest of the cast, especially her abusers, who play their parts with such disregard. The lack of emotion really does make them seem so evil.
The pacing is fantastic, none of this film drags. It feels like a whirlwind of suffering. It's unusual for a film that is so hard to watch to be so well paced. There are no boring sections, it's a struggle to watch, but it is never boring. The viewer is taken through several different types of violence all seamlessly. We see morally questionable murder by a damaged girl, then we see violence against an innocent which seems to cement that Lucie was correct to get her revenge, and then we see violence, although mostly not gratuitous, against a character we have formed a relationship with that has no reason.
The biggest issue with the film is the plot, it is quite convoluted and in the end can be seen as quite far fetched. Anna reaches martyrdom, she tells the older lady, who is in charge of the operation, what she sees. We never actually find out what she sees. This lady then kills herself. The plot really does distract from the gritty realism of the film, which is a real shame. Although, it may signify that only the victim has suffered enough to know the truth, and even the viewer must earn the right to know what the afterlife is.
Overall, Martyrs is a brilliant film, with some really hard to watch scenes, a definite must see for any disturbing cinema viewer. I recommend this one hugely! It's fantastic, if you can look past a weird plot.
9/10
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