Part I: The movie
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
Part II: The viewer
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.
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.
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.
Part III: the violence
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.
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.
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.