Editorials
‘Martyrs’ (2008) And The Paradox of Joy
Martyrs (2008) is infamously known as one of the most disturbing films of the 21st century. It is often considered a standout of the New French Extremity wave, though writer-directed Pascal Laugier disavowed that label. And while Martyrs does use visceral gore and nihilistic themes (hallmarks of the genre) to make its point, it’s a mistake to label the film as gratuitous or exploitative. We’ll explain why there is more to ‘Martyrs’ and how it helps us experience joy.
Martyrs (2008) is infamously known as one of the most disturbing films of the 21st century. It is often considered a standout of the New French Extremity wave, though writer-directed Pascal Laugier disavowed that label. And while Martyrs does use visceral gore and nihilistic themes (hallmarks of the genre) to make its point, it’s a mistake to label the film as gratuitous or exploitative.
Trauma, Memory, and the Film’s Violent Opening
The story begins with Lucie as a young traumatized girl who escapes a rundown building. At an orphanage, Lucie refuses to tell the adults about her abuse, though her friend Anna tries to comfort her. Next, a 15 year time jump introduces us to a family having breakfast in their home. The mother has pulled a mouse out of the septic tank, restoring water pressure to the building. The parents praise their daughter’s athletic achievements while they mock their son for dropping out of school. “I want to study something I like,” he tries to explain, “law isn’t my thing.” Before we can learn anything more about these people, an adult Lucie interrupts their breakfast, and the violence continues. She is soon joined by Anna, who tries to protect Lucie while mitigating the situation. Over the next 85 minutes, the violence escalates with very few reprieves.
Shifting Perspectives in Martyrs
Everything about Martyrs is designed to be destabilizing. The point of view shifts every 20-ish minutes, at first focusing on Lucie, then switching to Anna, and then ultimately switching to their aggressors. The viewer is forced to cling to every line of dialogue, every glance, every movement. Watching Martyrs becomes an endurance test, especially when so much of the violence in the first half of the movie involves self-harm. “I really wanted all my [special] effects to be almost medical,” Laugier told WhatCulture back in 2009 while singing the praises of his late friend, VFX supervisor Benoît Lestang. “It’s supposed to be about the flesh, the real condition of the body when you hurt yourself.”
Consequences, Guilt, and Viewer Complicity
In a conversation with What’s Up Man after Martyrs screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, Laugier explained that “any time there is a direct act of violence, it turns the story into something else. There are consequences to what we do.” This is how Martyrs continues it’s dialogue with the viewers long after the film ends. Once you’ve seen the completed film, do you view Lucie’s actions differently? Do you feel guilt, as Anna does, for questioning Lucie’s sanity? Are you frustrated by Anna’s choices? When the aggressors explain their motivations, do you believe them? Martyrs will not answer any of these questions for you.
Catholicism, Martyrdom, and Pascal Laugier’s Worldview
Though there are no religious symbols in this film, Laugier has said in several interviews that he drew on his Catholic background while writing this story. “The film is a personal reaction to the darkness of our world,” he told the online magazine Electric Sheep back in 2009. He describes the Western world as a place where “evil triumphed a long time ago, where consciences have died out under the reign of money and where people spend their time hurting one another.” He specifically uses the word “martyr” to mean someone who witnesses something to which only they can testify.
Here is Laugier explaining his movie in his own words:
“It’s a film about suffering. It’s a film about pain. It’s not a film about torture. … My film, for me, is very empathetic. You have to feel for them. I never make a laugh at my main characters. I love them and I want them to stop suffering. It’s a very sad movie. I would even say it could be a depressing film. It’s saying our time is over and evil has eaten everything.”
Watching Martyrs Through Anxiety and Catholic Guilt
I first watched Martyrs in the midst of a downward anxiety spiral – I was intentionally seeking out fucked up movies. Having grown up in a Catholic community, I immediately connected with how suffering is portrayed in this movie. The film left me nauseous and foggy, like my brain was being rewired. I also felt relieved. I had never before considered how institutions fetishize the suffering of others, and this new perspective soothed my anxiety.
The second time I watched Martyrs, now knowing the film’s arc, I could absorb more of the non-violent exposition details sprinkled throughout the story. For example, the few adults that we meet aside from the aggressors all behave callously. The way Anna’s mother speaks to her, the way the parents mock their son – these are ‘small’ acts of violence that are very common in our world. Laugier is pointing to the continuum of violence. Other quiet moments play with reality. If Lucie’s demons are manifestations of her guilt, how did those cuts get on her back? Why does the hammer fall in such a way that leads Anna to uncover the house’s secrets? Despite the film’s brutality, I relish these intricate details.
Mademoiselle, Fascism, and Ideological Hypocrisy
On my third viewing (spoilers from here onward), I understood Mademoiselle, and the acolytes that follow her. The way the parents praise their daughter’s athleticism is a nod to the fascist ideology that guides this cult. When Mademoiselle speaks, her words are gibberish, though she clearly believes in her cause. We, as the audience, never see what she sees in her photo album. She justifies her violence when she scoffs “people ignore the existence of suffering… yet everyone’s a victim”. According to her, the “true martyr” she so desperately seeks would be able to transcend the suffering she inflicts, though she is never the one to suffer. Her choices reveal the cowardice behind her philosophy.
Mademoiselle’s hypocrisy is so familiar to me, having grown up Catholic. I remember thinking as a child that I was a hypocrite because I did not believe in God. I attended mass most Sundays, and I always felt dishonest, like my heretical mind was an insult to the other attendees. I felt the need to hide parts of myself to fit in, but as I grew older, I witnessed several of the more pious attendees be violent, emotionally and physically, to their families and the community. I learned that my hidden self was not monstrous, like theirs, just different. My concept of hypocrisy changed; it’s not about dishonesty but a lack of identity. A hypocrite uses ideology to mask the missing identity within themselves.
The Emptiness of Dogma and Mademoiselle’s Final Act
Mademoiselle’s final act exposes the emptiness of her dogma. She achieves her ultimate goal when she gets a “crystal clear” answer from her martyr. This should be a celebration for her, she should be preaching, bragging even, to her followers. But she has tied her entire identity to this quest, and now that she has her answer, she is left with no purpose. Whether her martyr confirms or disproves her hypothesis doesn’t matter – her ideological quest has ended, and she has no identity left.
Though Mademoiselle and her followers are very organized and very powerful, their nonsensical ideology is not dissimilar to the contradictions in our real world. We treat retail theft as a newsworthy crime, even though corporations regularly steal billions in unpaid wages. Marijuana grown in a basement is an illegal narcotic, while oxycontin produced in a lab is sold as a wonder drug. When a person walks across a country’s border without the right paperwork, they’re branded as a dangerous criminal, and yet countries that drop millions of pounds of explosives on civilians are hailed as heroic. We have, without question, organized our society around a delusional ideology that allows powerful institutions, like Mademoiselle’s, to dole out violence as they see fit.
Nihilism, Validation, and the Limits of Resistance
Every time I watch Martyrs, I feel validated. Simply following society’s rules will not protect me – what rules did Lucie break as a child for her to deserve such a fate? This is not a safe world for children, and institutions are not empathetic. Lucie and Anna may fight back, but doing so does not lead them to a happy conclusion. This is the nihilistic takeaway from Martyrs: institutional violence is both meaningless and inevitable.
Empathy as Resistance in Martyrs
But there is a paradox buried in the details of Martyrs. Anna and Lucie, like so many people, are both motivated by empathy. Lucie is trying to help the person she couldn’t save as a child – in many ways, she is the film’s hero. Anna is trying to protect the woman she loves, so she chooses to stay in the house. They both do the best they can, and with their very limited tools, they manage to bring an entire cult to its knees. They cause the death of its leader. It is their so-called ‘insignificance’ that gives them power; two small mice gumming up an entire system of pipes.
This world may be all violence, as Martyrs suggests, and delusional zealots may write the rules, but if you are reading this, then you have the capacity to feel joy and empathy. You are alive. It is radical to love someone, as Anna does, it is radical to atone for your faults, as Lucie tries to do. In a system that is so cruel, every second that I feel joy is precious and hard-earned. My greatest weapon is empathy, and it brings me joy to understand my power.
This is my paradoxical reading of Martyrs. The world is cruel and punishing. So try your best, be kind, and cause a ruckus when you can.
We’re digging into workplace horror this month at Horror Press. While there are plenty of horror stories about the evils committed against workers, other movies take a different tack. Sometimes they’re about the horrors perpetrated by people who care way too much about their jobs and their status. This has perhaps never been distilled more perfectly than in American Psycho’s business card scene. Our killer, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), has a just-barely-not-literal dick-measuring contest with his coworkers by comparing their nearly identical cards. Witness below:
In the scene, we are presented with multiple differing opinions about which cards are better than others. However, it seems pretty clear that everybody thinks Paul Allen’s is far and away the best. But who are these assholes to judge? I’m here to settle once and for all which business card is most worthy of a table at Dorsia.
American Psycho (2000) Business Cards Ranked
4. Timothy Bryce (Justin Theroux)
First and foremost, there are two glaring flaws here. However, they are endemic to every business card at Pierce & Pierce. The biggest is that “Acquisitions” is misspelled. It’s missing the C! However, since all four cards are missing the C, we must assume that the company itself has a misspelled name. The fact that this infuriates me either makes me better than Patrick Bateman or way worse. I don’t wish to interrogate that.
The other issue I have right off the bat is that the last name is in all caps. I can’t quite articulate why that annoys me so much. But every card does this, so I similarly need to remove that factor from consideration when ranking them.
Bateman calls this card “impressive” and “very nice,” but you can tell that he’s lying through his teeth. The man’s ideas aren’t always great, but he’s right about Huey Lewis & The News, and he’s right about Bryce’s card. It’s too plain. The raised lettering might add some texture, but it doesn’t pop visually. The pale, nimbus white coloring is fine, I guess. But when combined with that pulpy horizontal pattern, the card looks like nothing less than a strip of toilet paper.
I do like how the card pops out of his metal carrying case at an angle, like a cigarette. But we’re judging the card on its own merits, not by its delivery mechanism.
3. David Van Patten (Bill Sage)
If we were judging by delivery mechanism, Bryce might have the edge. We don’t see how Van Patten’s card emerges. However, his delivery is quick enough that we can assume he didn’t extract it from some sort of cool sheath. The card itself does lose points right off the bat, though, because Bryce calls it “super” and “tasteful.” What the hell does that guy know?
Patrick muses that “I can’t believe that Bryce prefers Van Patten’s card to mine.” Once again, he’s right on the money. The man may be a cold-blooded murderer, but he’s got a killer eye. The eggshell coloring with Romalian type isn’t much better than Bryce’s card, for the most part. However, the font used for the phone number in the upper-left corner has a lot more flair. Plus, that pulpy pattern is more vertical here, and that makes a huge difference. The card looks more like a stucco wall than something you’d wipe your ass with.
2. Paul Allen (Jared Leto)
Now, this is the card that sends Bateman into a jealous rage. I don’t know if it’s quite worthy of that, but it’s certainly the best of his trio of competitors. And while I’m not trying to count presentation toward this ranking, there’s no denying the aura that Allen has. The BDE of people talking about his card when he’s not even in the room is undeniable. Allen doesn’t even need to throw his hat into the ring. Bateman asks to see his card. And Bryce pulls it out of his own pocket with trembling, reverential fingers.
There’s a lot here that gets Patrick Bateman flying off the handle. “Subtle off-white coloring.” I’ll give you the coloring. I don’t know about subtle, though. It’s bold and practically glowing. But I like it! “Tasteful thickness.” I’ll have to take his word for it on the tastefulness, but who wants a thick business card? That sounds like a one-way ticket to a paper cut.
And then Bateman concludes by admiring its watermark, which I simply can’t abide. Watermarks have only ever made things more visually cluttered. Case in point: If you’ve ever searched for a generic photo on Google, you’ve probably already declared a blood feud against Alamy.
All in all, though, it’s a pretty good card! I love the detail that the information at the bottom is displayed in two rows. It makes it all much easier to parse. However, alongside the aforementioned demerits, Allen gets major points off for the pretentious dots between digits in his phone number.
1. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale)
By picking Patrick Bateman’s card as my No. 1, I’m technically disagreeing with him. That’s how I can sleep at night.
I do like how he flips it casually out of his case, like a gunslinger. That doesn’t count, of course, but the card speaks for itself anyway. The bone coloring works well with the black Silian Rail lettering, making the overall effect less harsh on the eyes. And the embossed lettering gives it the visual texture that Bryce’s raised letters failed to achieve. I do think it’s a little disturbing how much margin there is on the card, though. It’s like the words are shrinking away from the edges. There’s too much negative space. However, there is a lot of flair in the font here. Those are some downright saucy serifs, on the phone number in particular. This card stands out among the crowd.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to return some videotapes.
Last year for 420, the great Sharai Bohannon hit you with the Top 5 Stoner Horror Movies on streaming. To celebrate 420 this year, we’re expanding our scope with horror movies to watch when you’re super stoned. There is a difference, you see. Movies don’t have to be about stoners in order to appeal to the righteously baked. Let’s jump right into it, before that edible kicks in.
5. Hausu (1977)
The only reason Hausu is ranked so low is that you may not speak Japanese. If you don’t, subtitles will likely be a struggle to keep up with. However, you don’t really need subtitles to keep up with Hausu. Obayashi Nobuhiko’s surrealist classic isn’t about plot. A witch is sucking the youth out of schoolgirls by killing them one by one. It’s not hard to parse. What Hausu is really about is giving you the brain-scrambles in every possible way.
Scenes as simple as schoolgirls getting on a bus are presented in a kaleidoscopic, colorful barrage of imagery. So imagine how it looks once the story actually gets balls-to-the-wall nuts. We’re talking characters being eaten by pianos and turning into piles of bananas. It’s wild, and it’s impossible to predict what’s around the next corner. However, the movie’s nonstop sense of fun is a safety net that should prevent you from getting too overwhelmed.
Hausu (1977) is currently streaming for free on Plex.
4. Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992)
Honestly, being stoned could only improve this latter installment in the Amityville Horror franchise. You might not be alert enough to notice just how low budget this haunted house sequel is. This will allow you to focus on just how bananas its goopy, special effects-heavy time travel story gets. Between the inscrutable character motivations and creative visuals, it’s dreamlike in the best possible way.
Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992) is currently streaming for free on Plex.
3. Slumber Party Massacre II (1987)
There’s nothing better than a post-Elm Street sequel to a straightforward pre-Elm Street slasher. Wes Craven’s 1984 classic was a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart of the slasher genre. However, its supernatural premise meant that copycat filmmakers had to shift their priorities as the slasher boom continued. It doesn’t matter a lick that the original Slumber Party Massacre had no supernatural elements. Its sequel’s a straight-up musical about a dream killer bearing an electric guitar with a giant drill bit on it. You just gotta roll with it. This movie also features some gloriously gross, cheesy nightmare sequences that stand among the best of the Elm Street ripoffs. Nothing could possibly dilate your stoned pupils more than the “evil chicken” or “exploding pimple” sequences. It’s also just 77 minutes long. Even if you’ve overestimated how much awakeness you had left in you, you can get through it.
Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) is currently streaming for free on Plex.
2. Suspiria (1977)
Dario Argento’s Suspiria is probably the most intense movie on this list in terms of its horror elements. So be warned. However, its purity as a visual experience is unmatched in the horror genre. Many filmmakers have tried and failed to recapture its color-drenched nightmare logic. Everything in the movie, from the plot to the aesthetic, feels simultaneously bizarre and perfectly ordered. Of course that woman has fallen into a room full of barbed wire. Of course that scene of a corpse crashing through a stained-glass ceiling is beautiful enough to make you weep. Honestly, maybe being stoned will get you onto whatever plane is required to fully pick up what it’s putting down.
Suspiria (1977) is currently streaming for free on Kanopy and Plex (which is a friend to all stoners, apparently).
1. Killer Party (1986)
Killer Party is also a post-Nightmare on Elm Street slasher. However, the liberties it takes with the genre are even more unhinged. It’s simultaneously a sorority slasher, a college comedy, and… well, I shouldn’t spoil that last subgenre. It’s a lot of different movies at once, all of which are perfectly designed to appeal to the stoned palate. Plus, its opening sequence within an opening sequence within an opening sequence should unlock your galaxy brain headspace right away.
Honorable Mention: Idle Hands (1999)
This title was already on Sharai’s list, otherwise it would have been at the top of mine. Not only is it a movie about stoners, but it’s a damn delightful horror-comedy thrill ride. 1990s horror icon Devon Sawa stars as a lazy young man whose hand is possessed by a homicidal demon. Things only get kookier from there.
