Depressed Metabolism

The genre of “torture porn” seems to be at the height of its popularity. The 2009 Imagine Film Festival in Amsterdam featured a non-trivial amount of horror movies with excessive violence, torture and sadism. But perhaps the most trustworthy indicator that this trend may be nearing its peak is the French movie “Martyrs.” The movie has been controversial since its release, setting critics who dismiss it as sadistic and misogynistic against those who praise it as “intense” and “thought provoking.”

It should not be a surprise that many who praise the movie feel the urge to deny that Martyrs is torture porn. This label should, of course, only be used for commercial American movies that offer cheap violence. In Martyrs the torture is not meant to be sick entertainment but an intense meditation on violence, pain, immortality, religion, and according to one commentator, American “neo-conservatism.” But what is a “deep movie” to some is just another example of ugly and pretentious French film making to others.

What remains puzzling about many writers who claim that the movie is thought provoking is that they do not seem to be able to offer a coherent outline of the themes that the movie is trying to address. If a movie is thought provoking one would expect something a little better than obscurantist statements about how deep the movie is. But perhaps the movie is so deep that a coherent discussion of its subject is deemed too superficial.

One perspective that one rarely encounters is that movies like Martyrs are not a step beyond simplistic violent exploitation but actually a throwback to times when art was supposed to educate, be meaningful, and communicate something about the human condition. In that sense the stereotypical pretentious French movie is not an expression of modern sensibility but an old fashioned morality play, just like French philosophy is often a sad reminder of the incoherent and undisciplined thinking that preceded  logical positivism and analytic philosophy.

Ironically, the nihilistic horror movies that depict extreme violence without justification or ultimate redemption, as some American horror movies do, can be perceived as far more transgressing than the predictable Continental exercises in “meaningful” film making. One is reminded of the American composer Morton Feldman whose approach was to let the music speak for itself instead of pushing the sound around.

This is not to say that all the deep themes that have been attributed to the movie can be attributed to Pascal Laugier, the writer and director of the movie. It is not uncommon for “intellectual” critics to impose more meaning on a work of art than the artist intended. Reportedly, Laugier has been approached for an American remake of Martyrs and a remake of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. Perhaps the Director will embrace these opportunities to put more emphasis on good cinematography (something that Laugier certainly can pull off) and less on ideas such as “violence against humanity.” The French can make very strong horror movies as evidenced by “À l’intérieur” (2007) and “Haute Tension” (2003).

A number of scenes in Martyrs recall Jaume Balagueró’s Los Sin Nombre (1999), the movie adaptation of Ramsey Campbell’s book The Nameless. But whereas Los Sin Nombre does not offer a “hint of self-awareness or ironic commentary or comedy relief ” that “would derail the film“, as one reviewer puts it, and even improves on Campbell’s ending of the story, Martyrs is a highly self-aware undertaking.