Fifteen years after escaping a bizarre captivity, Lucie (Mylène Jampanoï) is convinced that she has found, in a random newspaper photo, the couple responsible. They have two kids and live what appears to be a normal suburban life. Anna (Morjana Alaoui), Lucie's friend from the group home, is not convinced. The photo is blurry and Lucie's memory may not be reliable. Nevertheless, Anna is an accomplice. She arrives after Lucie to find the family killed. Lucie takes her own life soon after. This happens in the first, um, thirty minutes of "Martyrs." Anna, the new focus of the film, discovers a hidden metal stairway in the house, behind a cupboard.
The rapid, yet logical, twists of "Martyrs" give the film an authentic creepiness. Anna's journey down the stairs, what she finds there? One of the scariest scenes I've ever watched. I'll give "Martyrs" that much.
Those who made "Martyrs" can probably tell you why their film is more worthwhile than other extreme horror films. How the violence is meta or existential. This is most apparent in the third act of the film. It's an austere series of transcendentally painful blackout scenes that somehow combines Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc," "2001: A Space Odyssey," and Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." All good things, for sure. What are they doing in this movie? The DNA of "Martyrs" is always going to be sick--a murdered family, a man beating a woman unconscious, and worse. In a movie like this, you can't take this stuff seriously.
(I couldn't find any suitable pictures from "Martyrs.")
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