Martyrs, and the state of modern horror

2008
Writer/ Director- Pascal Laugier

I’m still trying to make my mind up about horror films. Most of them just don’t look that good really. Frankly most of them aren’t. But I still want to see more- when horror is good, it can be really fucking great. The problem is, the extent of my horror viewing goes no further than the old American classics, your Halloweens and Exorcists. Don’t get me wrong, they’re both very fine films but I suppose I am feeling a little more adventurous now. I guess what’s mainly stopping me now is, well… I hate to admit it but maybe I'm a little bit scared of what I’ll find.

The two most obvious trends going right now seem to be the Paranormal Activity/ Insidious slow build jumpy scare flicks and the gratuitous Saw-type torture porn debacles. The problem is neither seems at all daring or interesting. It doesn't help that the main example of a recent jumpy horror film I’ve seen was The Fourth Kind, which frankly was terrible- you know you can do much better when people are getting freaked out by smiling owls and glowing lights. I know there are better ones out there, yet still they look the same, and watching a film where the entire purpose is simply waiting for the bit where something jumps out screaming hardly seems entertaining.

At the other end of the scale is the all-out assault on decency and tolerability that are the gorno films. Unlike the ghost stories, these just shove everything on screen whether it needs or even should be on there. Saw was a surprisingly good film because whilst the context was fairly heavy, it had a point to it- there were characters with motivations and layers and some semblance of a plot. Yet the sequels and imitators seem to be nothing more than a perverts’ eye-view of showing people agonising in increasingly outlandish and graphic ways which I really can’t be doing with. I don’t see the appeal of watching people being mutilated, unless the films' popularity is down to some need to make oneself feel better by seeing how much worse it can get? Okay so maybe I’m a bit squeamish but it’s hardly engaging watching something which is no more than visual pollution for my eyes. It’s not body horror- David Cronenberg’s work proves that onscreen gore and distortion can say something, can really get under your skin and make you feel what they feel, which is what the best cinema does.

So I suppose my biggest fear here is simply wasting my time with a load of pointless crap. Sure the good films are probably going to horrify and upset me but that’s the point: I want to see something that will warp my worldview and change my thinking, show me something I’ve never seen before. Where can I find this then? One route I could take instead could be the arthouse horror film? As flawed and bizarre as it was, I have a great deal of admiration for Antichrist, though this is mainly down to my being a big fan of Lars von Trier and his brand of cinema which deliberately pushes audiences for reactions and does whatever the hell it wants to. A trend that’s caught my attention is the rise of the New French Extremism movement, French horror from the last 10-15 years that take a no holds barred approach to sex, violence, suffering both physical and mental and the general breaking of taboos. I’m intrigued as to why this trend has been happening in France of all places, what might be happening socially and culturally that would foster such a transition; maybe similar to the rise of J-horror in the 1990s? Some notable examples have been Irréversible, Switchblade Romance and Ils. Anything I’ve read about them has talked of how they’ve polarised audiences due to their graphic content yet received some great acclaim from critics as great works of cinema.

Martyrs, therefore, must be as good a place to start as anywhere. 52% on Rotten Tomatoes, with comments ranging from it being “unforgettable (not necessarily a good thing)”, “sadistic”, and “garbage” to it having “gravity and beauty”. One thing all agreed on was how unremittingly brutal this film is. It starts with 10 year old Lucie escaping from a decrepit building, having been abused and tortured for a sustained period of time. She’s taken into a children’s home, but remains plagued with visions of a savage and horrible creature that only she can see. 15 years later, Lucie and her friend Anna turn up at the home of the people she believes were behind her captivity, seeking revenge. What follows is a descent into violence, suffering and extremes as the full extent of Lucie’s past is revealed.

I don’t want to ruin it by giving anything away but Martyrs is definitely an endurance test of a film. It is ruthlessly intense and unwaveringly graphic- nothing is hidden away, some of which was a bit too much for me as I clutched behind my cushion. It’s also intensely nihilistic, depicting a world where humans are without any trace of humanity, where people are willing to abuse and torture others to get what they want. You can’t help wondering whether it was all genuinely necessary- do they really need to show every injury and every attack in such detail? It’s undeniably powerful and will definitely provoke a response as intended but it surely could have done that without being so bloody?

Either way, whilst Martyrs is definitely a torture porn film, what distinguishes it is what it’s trying to achieve. This is a film about the nature of suffering and the quasi-philosophical issues this raises about the relationship between body and mind, the conditions of the material world and the capabilities of humans for evil alongside compassion. Whilst this all sounds a little pretentious, it isn’t an overwhelming factor of the film- instead that is given to the sustained scenes of abuse and violence. But these themes do give Martyrs some sense of purpose beyond the usual mindless torture films, as well as ideas that dwell on the mind after the credits have rolled alongside the pretty unforgettable images.

However the film works best in the first two-thirds when it is less about the reasons behind the events that have happened and more about what is actually happening. The appearances of the apparition are horribly tense and unpleasant, producing the genuine scary moments (at least for me, I don’t know whether a more hardened horror viewer will think as much of it). It’s all very visceral, as we see Lucie and Anna’s friendship tested by the extremities around them. The appearance of a new nameless character halfway through genuinely disturbed me, as the plot thickens and some really horrifying images are shown. It’s just in the final third that the course of the film changes- we are presented with the monotony and severity of suffering rather than the effects of it as shown before. The reasons behind it are interesting to consider but in the end it doesn’t have a great deal to say, finishing with a bit of a cop-out rather than a conclusion.

There’s no denying Martyrs is a very well made film, with magnificent visual effects and two brilliant performances from the two leads and overall it is an effective horror film that really pushes boundaries and affects the viewer in a number of ways. It’s not an enjoyable film; I don’t think I ever want to see it again. But I’m glad I have seen it and would recommend it if you can stomach it. The problem is that whilst the film is offering a condemnation on violence and the conditions that promote it, at face value it often looks like simply a depiction of the brutalisation of women in the way that it dwells so garishly on the bloodletting. It’s deeply problematic- it succeeds where Michael Haneke’s Funny Games failed thematically but the very nature of the film itself seemingly undermines the message it’s trying to promote. This film can work, but maybe you shouldn’t think about it too much and just simply experience it for what it is.    

Cloud Atlas

2012

Directors and Writers: Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski

For a film of such scale and ambition as well as having such a large big name cast, the fact that Cloud Atlas has had a relatively muted impact is quite surprising. When the directors believe the best way to promote their film, a time travelling, genre-hopping fable on the nature of existence, is to release a 6 minute extended trailer then you know at the very least it’s going to be something pretty interesting. Much of what was shown focused on the vast and varied visuals, along with some voiceovers attempting to convey the philosophical nature of the film’s content as well as internal references to its literary nature and background as an adaptation of a novel by David Mitchell. However, the miss-marketing of the film which struggled to advertise such a difficult product as well as some of the most polarised reviews in a long time could go some way to explain the lack of a response it has had from the public.

Cloud Atlas intercuts between six storylines all taking place in different times and places but edited together to feel like they’re running simultaneously. The earliest focuses on a lawyer travelling across the Pacific after a business trip and his changing world view after his meeting with a stowaway slave and his descent into increasingly life-threatening illness. The next is set across England and Scotland in 1936 and follows the life of Robert Frobisher, a budding composer engaged in a secret homosexual relationship, who begins work as an amanuensis to a famed musician, allowing him time to develop his own masterpiece. Then we meet Luisa Rey, a journalist in 1973 San Francisco investigating a conspiracy in a nearby nuclear reactor and a company resorting to increasingly criminal methods to keep its secrets hidden.

The fourth concerns publisher Timothy Cavendish in 2012 and his retreat into hiding after receiving threats from an imprisoned client. On the run, he finds himself bizarrely trapped in a tyrannical old people’s home, where we witness his and other inmate’s attempt at escape. After we jump to the future: 2144 and Neo Seoul, Korea where cloned waitress Sonmi-451 is alerted to the world beyond from which she has previously been prevented from seeing, one which is oppressive and self-destructive. Finally there is the distant post-apocalyptic future, and the encounter between a primitive tribe and a technologically advanced race seeing something hidden in the wilderness.

It’s a helluvalot to take in and you do find yourself spending a good half an hour/first third of the film simply trying to work out who everyone is and how everything pieces together. One of the biggest selling points of Cloud Atlas is the ensemble cast all playing multiple roles across the six stories, each of them even playing different ages, races and genders in the hope of expressing one of the film’s biggest themes of the connectedness of human beings and the nature of the human spirit in reincarnation. Whilst some reviewers have had issues with this device and the heavy use of prosthetics and make up to transform them all, personally I quite liked it, at least in terms of the novelty of it; although it can be fascinating to see how these characters pop up in different places, how they’ve changed or stayed the same, how they’re linked or related to each other. Plus you can get the sheer weirdness of seeing Tom Hanks play an Irish gangster, Jim Sturgess a Korean freedom fighter or Hugo Weaving a Nurse Ratched-type villain. One problem is you do find yourself spending time distracted from the diegesis whilst you attempt to guess who’s playing who or marvelling at who’s just appeared in a completely new appearance.

A lot of big themes are discussed in this: the cyclical nature of existence and how this is tied into religious and philosophical notions of reincarnation and transmigration of souls, as well as the appearance of déjà vu and how no matter what or who is involved, history is bound into repeating itself. It’s about human nature and the capabilities for people in any situation for good or evil, love and compassion or greed- how history can be changed by moments of sacrifice. Occasionally it feels like it’s trying to take on too much, when it tries to justify the overall content with the odd montage here or there at pivotal moments in the stories, all edited together with heavy cross-cutting and voiceovers talking existential nonsense. Yet these themes give Cloud Atlas a greater sense of purpose, at least compared to a lot of other spectacle-driven blockbusters. The recurring links between stories- the half-finished diary, a piece of music, love letters- are a nice touch, although it would have been better if some of them could have been extended to take on more major roles.

One thing I liked particularly about this film was the level of compassion one ends up feeling for the major characters. It may just simply be the length amount of time we see each on screen but watching the developing relationships between each of them is genuinely engaging and in some cases almost quite touching, such as that between Sonmi and Hae-Joo Chang or Frobisher and Sixsmith. There’s even time for some lighter moments, like Cavendish’s odyssey of escape which is a lot of fun and his memories of his childhood love. There are plenty of captivating setpieces too: a hoverbike chase through Seoul, the breakout from the retirement home, the assassination attempts.

It all looks bloody good too. The production design on this is excellent and frankly it needed to be- with all the jumping around through time, each story needs its own distinct look to enable us to keep up. You can tell a lot of thought and care has gone into creating each one. I especially liked the murky and monochromic look of 1970s San Francisco, which looks nice and distinct from the other parts. Some recognition should also be given to the beautiful soundtrack, which uses repeated motifs to better express the unity across the entire film.

The problem is that despite all the stories and characters and developments, it frankly doesn’t have that much to say. First of all, at nearly three hours, it is definitely too long. Not that what was onscreen was ever boring, but it could have been more concise which might have helped clarify what it was trying to say- although that is one of the problems with adapting such a difficult novel. It’s just when you look at each of the six stories in themselves, you realise that not a great deal actually happens overall.  The four middle parts work the best; the first is let down by a rather dull narrative and lack of development which is accentuated when compared with the other parts, whilst in the last the characters speak a heavy sort of pidgin English which is hard to understand plus the context itself is much more unrelatable and therefore less engaging. The 1936 part works best as a story in itself, one about forbidden love and battling against different sorts of oppression. The 2012 part is definitely the most fun. The 2144 story gets all the most memorable scenes. But many of these stories end up relying on different sorts of generic clichés to formulate their identities, which is a little disappointing.  And overall by the end, despite all the action that has happened, it feels like not a great deal has been said. Sure we’ve had plenty of moments displaying the overall links between different times, places, and people but in the end, not much has really changed. Each story ends, and that’s it; no overarching revelations or developments, just the reinforcement of those big ideas over and over again, which frankly, isn’t enough.

But still, I found myself thinking about this film for days afterwards. Plenty of the scenes and characters are memorable and help to distinguish this from many other big budget films. There certainly is a lot to admire about Cloud Atlas. Whilst I understand a lot of the criticisms that have been levelled at this film, it doesn’t seem fair to be just so loathsome about it. It’s refreshing to see a film which tries to be at once entertaining and thoughtful, one which is open to exploring deep themes and philosophies and making it engaging and accessible. Of course, the Wachowskis did a far better job of that with The Matrix, but this film isn’t the complete failure that some have made it out to be. Yeah it’s messy and it’s definitely flawed, but it’s exciting to see something so ambitious and original being explored and personally this sort of thing should be encouraged. But following the less than rapturous response this has received, that looks increasingly unlikely. Sure we’ll still have some nice thoughtful art films and plenty of big budget action flicks, but why must they always be so distinct? It’s risk taking like this that keeps cinema fresh at a time of zombified franchises and endless sequels, so here’s hoping this would have had a bit more of an impact for some people than others, to galvanise some spark into film.