Martyrs

Martyrs (2008) is about a woman abducted as a child finding, years later, the people who did it. Fifteen years ago Lucie escaped from somewhere; she could never explain what happened and has said since that she sees a creature. Anna, whom she met in the orphanage, is her only friend. The film opens on a family at breakfast, and Lucie knocks and comes in. She identifies them as the people who tortured her. By the time Anna arrives there are bodies, and whether Lucie was right is unclear. The first half runs on that uncertainty: is she right or is she ill. In the second half a structure is found under the house and the real subject emerges. There is an organisation whose purpose is to turn pain into a method; they are trying to get information from people who have seen what is after death. That section is among the hardest in cinema and is almost entirely silent. It is the most discussed example of the French extremity movement. There was an argument about its classification in France and it was first given the highest rating. Pascal Laugier wrote and directed. The final line turns the film into something else and causes argument: some read it as a layer of meaning, others as an evasion. An American remake was made and changed the ending entirely. It runs 99 minutes. Good for: extreme horror, French cinema, and the limits of genre. Less good for: the violence and torture are constant and graphic; it is not suitable for most viewers.