Martyrs (2008 film)
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Pascal Laugier |
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| Written by | Pascal Laugier |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Seppuku Paradigm |
| Cinematography |
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| Edited by | Sébastien Prangère |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Wild Bunch |
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Release date
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Running time
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94 minutes |
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| Language | French |
| Budget | €2.8 million |
| Box office | $1.1 million |
Martyrs is a 2008 French-Canadian drama horror film written and directed by Pascal Laugier. It was first screened during the 2008 Cannes Film Festival at the Marché du Film, and the film's French release was on 3 September 2008. The American rights for the film were purchased by the Weinstein Company and the company was responsible for the release of the DVD in April 2009.
The film was controversial upon its release, receiving polarizing reviews from critics and has been associated with the New French Extremity movement.
The film begins with a young girl, Lucie Jurin, as she escapes from a disused abattoir where she has been imprisoned and physically abused for a long time. The perpetrators and their motivations remain a mystery. Lucie is placed in an orphanage, where she is befriended by a young girl named Anna Assaoui. Anna discovers that Lucie believes that she is constantly being terrorized by a ghoulish creature; a disfigured emaciated woman.
Fifteen years later, Lucie (Mylène Jampanoï) bursts into the home of an apparently normal family with a shotgun, the Belfonds—Gabrielle, her husband, and their children Antoine and Marie—and kills them all. Elsewhere, Anna (Morjana Alaoui) waits for Lucie. Although Anna knows that Lucie believes the Belfonds are the people responsible for her childhood abuse, she is horrified when Lucie tells her that she has killed them. She discovers that Gabrielle is still alive and tries to help her escape. Unfortunately, Lucie bludgeons Gabrielle to death. Lucie is again attacked by the scarred creature, but Anna only sees Lucie hurting herself; the 'creature' is nothing more than a psychological manifestation of Lucie's guilt for leaving behind another girl who was also tortured with her as a child. Lucie, realizing that her insanity will never leave her, commits suicide.
The next day, Anna, still at the family's house, telephones her mother, from whom she has been estranged; their conversation implies that Anna suffered abuse from her parents as a child. Anna discovers a secret underground chamber. Imprisoned within is a horribly tortured young girl, Sarah, proving that Lucie was right about the family. Anna helps Sarah but a group of strangers arrive and shoot Sarah dead. Captured, Anna meets their leader, an elderly lady referred to as Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle explains that she belongs to a secret philosophical society seeking to discover the secrets of the afterlife through the creation of "martyrs". Their experiments inflict systematic acts of torture upon young women in the belief that their suffering will result in a transcendental insight into the world beyond this one.
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