The film starts in 1971 when a child named Lucie (played by Jessie Pham age 10 years old), managed to escape captivity from someone who had kidnapped her and tortured her. Lucie gets to safety and spends her remaining childhood years in an orphanage. She would not make friends with any of the children accept one. Anna (played by Erika Scott aged 10 years old). They do everything together.
15 years later Lucie played by Mylène Jampanoï recognises her captors in a newspaper as they were never caught. She hunts them down to free herself from her long time demons and becomes a murderer. Anna played by Morjana Alaoui enters Lucie’s hell and understands her previous plight when it is later found out that her captors were part of a larger organisation with a larger network of cold hearted torturers working towards the martyrdom experiment.
Lucie and Anna’s relationship in uncertain and Lucie imposes her suffering onto Anna literally projecting her fears and in turn Anna becomes the sufferer. Lucie changes from needy to nasty and Anna becomes quite literally martyred in her own friendship. When Anna loses Lucie to her demons she finds a hidden torture chamber under the house where she finds another tortured woman. She nurtures her and helps her become free so she is replacing Lucie.
When Anna is captured and locked away to be periodically tortured she draws strength from her memories of Lucie. So now Anna is alone and her torment begins. This is where the film gets even more interesting. Anna is given the reason for her upcoming torment by Mademoiselle – the apparent leader of the organisation. In order to elevate the mind to a higher state of consciousness the body needs to be punished. Her belief in the martyred suffering and the next world show the films connection with French Catholicism. She also states that this process works best on vulnerable young women
The film
continues in torturing Lucie by force- feeding, shaving all her hair off,
humiliating beatings and being made to pee and poo in a bucket from a chair
with a hole in it.When Anna takes a certain glance Mademoiselle is called. She speaks to Anna and Anna whispers in her ear Mademoiselle is the only person to hear of what Anna had seen when she transcended herself at the end of the process (the last process involved skinning her alive. Fully). The film is ambiguous and Martyrs transcends itself just as Anna does, there is no fulfilment to the film just an empty hole in which Mademoiselle left us with at the end of the film. Just what did Anna say? What transcends this world?
By Lea Weller BA
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