[siorai]

Originally Posted by Papillon Noir

Movies like Martyrs change you, because it causes you to think deeper into what is going on and the message that film is telling you. It's not just entertainment, but a psychological and philosophical experience. This is a film, but you gain the knowledge and truth of the events without the consequences, which is truly remarkable.

I guess the main problem I have with the supposed "message" is this:

The secret society was trying to find out about the afterlife. They felt that at the final point of self-sacrifice, a martyr is able to see God, the afterlife, or whatever you want to call it. The problem is that the girls they torture and kill are not martyrs. They are purely victims. They are not dying for a cause that fills their heart, mind, and soul. They are dying because they has the unfortunate luck to be kidnapped by a cabal of lunatics.

Compare the monk who immolated himself to Anna being beaten repeatedly then having her skin peeled off. The monk died for a cause. Thích Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's Ngô Đình Diệm administration. He died with his heart and mind focused on bringing awareness to an injustice. What cause did Anna die for? What filled her heart leading up to her death? Terror, pain, and confusion. An utterly pointless death in all sense of the word.

Martyr's "message" would have made much more sense if the secret society members were the ones offering themselves up for the beating, torture, and ultimate death. But that wouldn't make as compelling of a movie now would it? Who would care about a bunch of pseudo-religious nutjobs torturing each other to death? There would be no reason to empathize with the victims because they wouldn't be victims. So the only route to go would be to kidnap innocents and torture/kill them so that the audience would actually care about their fate.

Martyrs was a valiant effort, but was weakened in my opinion by a hackjob of a plot device to explain and hour and a half of violence.