[Spoilers] Martyrs (2008)

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[spoilers] Ok, I've just seen Martyrs (Pascal Laugier, 2008). And for those who have seen it as well, I need some opinions/explanations about the ending because I'm really confused. So the thing is, and this is where the spoilers start (stop reading here if you haven't seen the film yet - you've been warned), in the end of the film, after the "martyr" tells the old lady what happens after death, and the group of old rich folks arrive at the house to hear the old lady explaining what happens, she suicides herself with a gunshot in the head. OK, what happened? If the afterlife was like, something quite unattractive, it would be pretty stupid to do suicide. Fine, this is obvious. So that means the afterlife (or nirvana, if you prefer), is something good. Then, if that old woman was trying desperately to find what happens next, funding this kind of horrific research, and then calling an old folk assembly, why did she killed herself before she could tell what happens? I don't get this ending. I know this is a film, the audience is not supposed to know what happens either, that was the point, but hell, it makes no sense at all.

Alright, apart from this ending, the film is quite good for a psychological horror.



For a film that's really personal such as this, it's far better for yourself to decipher these things on your own. No one gets any meaning or learns from art through asking "what is it", but a different method would be pure discussion from the basic philosophy of the film, something in which you can derive your own personal meaning from instead of being given an answer. Just sayin



She might of commit suicide to spite them , because the afterlife was so great she didn't want to wait anymore.
My take is, the last words she said was "keep doubting", therefore i assume she meant there were others than the old guy at the door that "doubted" the paradise of afterlife, she then committed suicide as a powerful statement saying basically its real. Thats my take anyway. AWESOME movie.
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I know it's hard to use your brain to figure out movies, but I'm too busy to write a cognitive response to this
I wasn't asking you to come with an essay explaining the ending. I was looking for opinions. So if you didn't wish to share yours and prefer to write something in a demeaning tone, you could have just stayed shut.

She might of commit suicide to spite them , because the afterlife was so great she didn't want to wait anymore.
My take is, the last words she said was "keep doubting", therefore i assume she meant there were others than the old guy at the door that "doubted" the paradise of afterlife, she then committed suicide as a powerful statement saying basically its real. Thats my take anyway. AWESOME movie.
I've searched for some other opinions on google, and I've found the one that I think says it all, at least, it seems the better explanation. It was passing me by, I didn't even consider that. I don't know if I'm allowed, but I'll cite what I've read:

"Anna knows, just like the viewer knows, that discovering the existence of the afterlife is Mademoiselle's life work, so important to her and the cult that they are willing to do anything.

The beauty of the movie (which some viewers have completely missed), is that when Anna whispers to Mademoiselle, we think Mademoiselle wins. We think Mademoiselle gets what she wants. We think Mademoiselle is going to tell the glorious news to the gathering cult. And we think Anna has been reduced to nothing more than a used, mindless, unthinking tool.

But then comes the twist: "Keep doubting...bang!"

And we realize
we were wrong.

Anna purposely lied to Mademoiselle and said there was no afterlife, she saw nothing. It is the one and only thing that Anna could do that would destroy Mademoiselle. Despite her pain throughout the ruined shell of her body, she retained enough strength and humanity in her mind to use the one and only chance she had.

Anna was the first to speak, and what she spoke convinced Mademoiselle that there was nothing, that her entire life was a futile, evil quest for nothing. Mademoiselle gave up, overcome with guilt and worthlessness, and killed herself.

The cult departs, defeated. Anna wins, the Martyr sacrificed and not one other girl will ever be tortured. With a simple whisper she destroyed her captors, finally avenged her friend, and saved countless girls from falling into the same fate. There is some foreshadowing of this in the very beginning of the movie, when young Anna tells the doctors she knows she is there to help Lucie, and to find the bad people who hurt her.

It is this unexpected display of strength, loyalty, endurance and sacrifice of Anna, a true martyr, that elevates the movie to a level far above the horror genre.

Anna transcends, and thus Martyrs transcends.

The only mystery is did Anna really see something, and if she did, what happens to suicide-Mademoiselle."



You failed to bring up the possibility she killed herself because there maybe was nothing, she's already in a religious mindset and living in fear and awe of what she concocted in her head, she could just as easily kill herself out of fear she is wrong. The martyrs who witness these things, regardless of what they do see, experience first-hand human suffering done through others for utterly useless means, the ending isn't a revelation of afterlife.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
I figured she killed herself because knowing what was in the afterlife was too much for one person to know.
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I actually haven't seen this film, but I read about it awhile back as part of some related research, and it seems like most of the suggestions made so far fit equally well. But the one thing they all have in common is that they make her suicide perfectly rational, which is all we need to know, because it means she was wrong to do what she did. Whatever she learns about the afterlife will bring about her death. In doing the evil she does, she's made it impossible to "win."



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The same questions apply to Aronofsky's Pi. The interesting idea behind both films is how transcendental truth necessarily overwhelms the human mind. Both films also speak to the destructive power of the possibility of such a truth in man. That being said, I would tend to lean towards a similar interpretation for ending of both films. The woman in Martyrs said "keep doubting" instead of, for arguments sake only, something like "well, there's nothing actually!" For me that seems to be an encouragement to the man to keep his faith as faith (i.e. as doubt) instead of wanting for certainty through the martyrs experiments, because it won't yield a viable answer.
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I guess she was too selfish to tell anyone what the martyr had told her.



This movie was really promising in the first ~40 minutes,then it just went downhill.The whole idea about the afterlife was overbuilt, so I'm guessing that the director just couldn't tell us what Anna said because it just wouldn't surpass viewers' expectations.



I have taken upto a rare combination in living, which means the brighter side and the darker side of life. Lets take it like this, the producer and the director must have had a clear vision of what the girl experienced in the end, she was moving towards a passage of light, beginning from the sky, which means the sky was just the beginning. Do you all believe in heaven and hell, I say no. lets say why, Do you believe in God and the Devil, I say there is only one super natural power which has a good side and a bad side to itself, which means Satan does not exist. Remember when we use temper and hurt someone for no reason or a purpose which was intended to cheat the other, was a -ve power which was not by Satan, but through the natural being of the same super natural creator, who needs to blame it on the evil. So lets take this scenario, who has ever experienced a near death experience apart from what happened to me. I was drowned in a lake when I was 9 yrs. and could feel the misery and near death experience of getting unconscious with water filled in and out in my system. Things really go easy very soon, I begin to see myself from up which means above land moving towards a direction which I couldn't control, so in short the unseen substance apart from our body which we call as soul, does understand that its leaving the body and is moving to where its originated. What did I feel? the only thing that a soul carries with it is a recognition to yourself and an emotion. Thats what I felt and its the same what she had gone through. about 30 min. later when I was rescued and came to conscious from the fishers who were on a boat, informed my parents that I had turned cold and had no pulse. I still don't remember more but its very simple we move towards a direction which we can only feel but cannot control a thing, in short everything gets locked, we know how we look, its the same feeling when we were alive, but its light like a gas balloon, the sense of feeling that our body has no mass and its just a soul, and that too has no control,an immediate loss of all the memories and relations, its strange but its a fact that I experienced, for some reason our soul seems to be happy about something wherever its moving, something even more strange is after experiencing this soul moving it was not straight but through a slanting manner, ridiculous but is a fact. This is a truth and nothing but the truth, after dyeing we know we were alive at some point of time, and thats only when we see our real mass body, after sometime we feel where are we going. What she experienced is the same, want to know why did the lady shoot herself, its simple it was the last words gifted through the supernatural power of this girl becoming victorious over living and the dead, and the words are I am going to a place which will never be your destination unless you regret for what you are doing all by yourself. Guys with me its serious either agree its okay or disagree, choice is yours. But no fun about this subject its a serious thinking and a dead serious experience.