3. Martyrs (2008)
Martyrs begins with two friends who meet in an orphanage - Lucie and Anna. Lucie says she has undergone severe sexual abuse and is haunted by a horrible female ghoul. A number of years later, Lucie shoots to death every member of the family she believes is responsible for her abuse. She phones Anna to enlist her help of disposing with the bodies. When Anna comes over, she is shocked by the bloodshed. The mother of the family has survived and tries to escape but Lucie kills her. She is attacked by the ghoul but realises it is the manifestation of her guilt at not being able to save another young girl from abuse. In agony, she kills herself and dies in Anna's arms. Cleaning up the house, Anna discovers a torture dungeon and is captured by a secret society who seek to create martyrs - women who can transcend extreme physical pain and enter a new realm. Lucie was a failed subject. Anna is a success and goes to be flayed. The head of the cult wants to know what Anna felt and when asked by one of the members, she blows her head off with a gun. A pioneer of the New French Extremity, Martyrs has divided critics as to its artistic merit and many of them consider it is the new barometer against which extreme films should be measured. It is hard to know whether the word "enjoyable" can be tacked on to Martyrs. Compelling maybe but it is largely a test of endurance to see if you can sit through extreme torture without having to tackle the film piece by piece. The film is so totally disturbing you may wish it would end a lot earlier than it does. Nothing at all like extreme, what I would call torture porn pieces like Hostel or Saw, there is a melancholy and depth of feeling that sets Martyrs apart from violence for the sake of it cinema.