Martyrs (2008) - full transcript
Fifteen years after a horrifying experience of abduction and prolonged torture, Lucie embarks on a bloody quest for revenge against her oppressors. Along with her childhood friend, Anna, who also suffered abuse, she quickly descends, without hope, into madness and her own delusions. Anna, left on her own begins to re-experience what Lucie did when she was only twelve years old.
- Can we film?
- Whenever you're ready, doctor.
We're in the Chamfors
industrial zone.
It was on this very spot
that the child was found.
This is Building 1.
We have prefectorial authorization
to make this film
for the medical archives
of Assumption Hospital
Pediatric Services.
Here we are.
This is where she lived.
She wasn't raped.
That much is certain.
Otherwise it's a classic case
of child abuse.
Malnutrition, dehydration,
mild hypothermia.
The hole allowed her
to relieve herself.
The wrist infection indicates
she was tied down.
But how did she get out?
Lucie won't say
what she endured.
- Is that orange juice?
- Yes
- Is it for her?
- Yes.
You're a regular little mommy.
She has no one now.
Don't worry, Anna.
These gentlemen
are very nice.
Okay.
You understand why
we showed you this film?
Why do you think we need you?
Because you want
to catch the people who hurt Lucie?
That's right, Anna.
Lucie, too.
She says you have to catch them.
What else did she say...
She's scared.
She tells you things?
She's scared.
What does she remember?
She doesn't know who it was.
Sometimes she thinks she remembers,
sometimes she doesn't.
And what do you think?
Can she remember?
It was always dark.
She couldn't see much.
She doesn't remember.
Come in.
Lucie Jurin didn't come to lunch.
Anna...
Don't tell anybody.
Don't do that.
It wasn't me.
Calm down.
Want to get in with me?
15 YEARS LATER
Give me that!
That's enough, you two!
Pain in the ass!
His darling can't write!
Stop it, I said.
You rotten sister!
- Don't you touch me!
- Thats none of your business.
You don't know nothing about love.
You've got no friend.
You having breakfast or not?
We're coming.
Yo're such a pain in the ass!
I hate you!
MARIE BELFOND REGIONAL 100 METER
BUTTERFLY STROKE CHAMPION
That's how you talk about it?
How should I talk?
- Smartass!
And you wait until Sunday.
Told your mother?
What does she say?
That there's a water
pressure problem.
When she goes DIY,
she's not happy.
- And you're happy?
- Me?
- This is the high life.
- "This is the high life."
- Mission accomplished.
- Great.
Here...
A gift from the chief.
Oh shit, Gabrielle!
It's gross.
In the main pipe.
It explains the low shower pressure.
Dump it. We're eating.
Mom!
It's sickening,
but we can put the garden back.
Did Antoine mention
his great plans?
I was just asking
what you thought.
You were asking
if she wasn't mad.
Keep out of this.
But he's my brother.
Your darling brother's a visionary.
Right, Antoine?
It'll be an expensive school
to leave after just 3 months.
And with tuition paid in advance.
Do you mind!
She made the headlines.
- You gonna make this a habit?
- What?
You needed prep school
just to graduate.
- You just scraped by.
- But I graduated.
A good thing, too.
Remember what it cost?
The checks each term?
But did you give a damn?
Aren't you tired
of being such a pain?
But this school is different.
I want to study
something I like now.
Nobody forced you.
But law isn't my thing.
Law opens every door.
That's not the problem.
He wants to live with his sweetheart.
But law's not my thing.
If anything was your thing,
we'd know.
You wanted to drop out
to be a pastry cook, you dummy!
That's below the belt!
Who's the pain in the ass now?
Language, Marie Belfond!
- It's Sunday, after all.
- So?
What are you resting up from?
A hard week at the factory?
Don't move!
Sit down.
How old are you?
18.
Know what your parents did?
How could you do that to me?
How could you?
Why?
It's them.
- It's them, Anna.
- You saw them'?
They've changed. But it's them.
- You sure'?
- I'm telling you.
- It's been 15 years.
- It's them.
- You can tell from a newspaper photo?
- Yes!
- Let's call the cops.
- No need.
- What?
- I did what I had to.
- What?
- What I had to.
You had to observe.
You weren't sure.
But I am sure.
- I knew I should've come along.
- Why don't you believe me?
Where you calling from?
- The house.
- Their house?
Give me the address.
Give me the address!
I did it.
It's me, Lucie. Calm down.
It's me.
She's here.
- She's in the house.
- I know.
She hurt me even worse.
Look!
Stay here.
Where you going?
- To take a look.
- She's in there.
- I have to look.
- She's in there.
Look at me. I have to look.
Wait for me.
She hurt me worse than before.
I'm coming.
What will I do?
I'm coming.
- I'm out of cartridges.
- Do without them.
- Why don't we leave?
- Come on.
She'll be back.
Come on.
You phoned me from the house.
They'll know it's us.
I don't care.
Right.
I don't care.
If they lock you up, you'll care.
- What will we do?
- Keep still.
- It hurts.
- Sorry.
What will we do, Anna?
Are you okay?
Does it make you sick?
Can you smell it?
That awful smell?
I'd it when she bent over me.
Every day, understand?
When she beat me, I'd smell it.
Look.
It's them.
What are you doing?
Will I ever be free of this?
Please, don't make any noise.
What are you up to?
You Okay?
- I called you.
- I was here.
I thought she'd come back.
You finished?
- Then we'll go.
- After we clean up.
- Then we'll go?
- Sure. Get dressed.
- Open up, Anna.
- It's locked.
Open up.
Hurry!
What do you want?
Leave me alone!
I killed them.
Even their kids.
I even killed their kids.
Calm down.
Don't go in there, you little slut!
I'll kill you!
Forgive me.
It's not my fault.
Where are you?
I know you're in there. Open up.
I'm coming.
What's your name?
Gabrielle.
I'm coming, Lucie.
Help me, Gabrielle.
Why did she do this?
I think she heard us.
We have to hurry.
- An ambulance.
- I can't.
For my children.
I'll take you as far as the woods.
Then you're on your own.
Don't!
Don't, Lucie!
Why did you help her?
She didn't do anything.
She hurt me.
Me!
And you want her to live?
You never believed me.
Stop it.
You think I'm crazy,
just like the doctors.
What did they ever do for me,
apart from think me crazy?
And you're like them.
It's over, Anna.
They're dead.
They won't hurt you anymore.
Stop!
Why are you calling?
Not a word from you in two years,
and now you call?
I'm furious with you.
I won't hide it.
Mom...
Trying to make me feel guilty?
Think I don't blame myself?
Think my head's not filled
with all the crap I did?
That's not it, Mom.
Then what?
I wanted to talk to you.
I just felt like it.
So one morning you decide
you miss your mother?
So you're okay? Not in trouble?
You sure? Where are you?
Pretty far away.
Where you do sleep?
How do you live?
- I'm okay.
- You still with her?
You're under her influence.
Christ! You're still with her.
It's the same thing.
That girl's a good-for-nothing.
She's a bitch, a pervert, a loser...
Get away from her.
Don't move.
I can't help you.
Calm down.
Calm down.
Rest.
Forgive me.
Forgive me.
Stop it!
Who's the girl on the couch?
Who?
Lucie who?
Lucie Jurin.
And you?
- And you?
- Anna Assaoui.
- We've been calling for hours.
- The phone was off the hook.
This shouldn't have happened.
Can you tell me
what went on here?
What are you doing here?
Lucie Jurin escaped us 15 years ago,
didn't she?
Didn't she?
A time when we were,
shall we say, less organized.
Gabrielle shouldn't have let her
get away. The child found her.
After 15 years,
that takes some doing.
As for the rest,
Lucie is only a victim.
Like all the others.
It's so easy to create a victim,
young lady, so easy.
You lock someone in a dark room.
They begin to suffer.
You feed that suffering,
methodically,
systematically and coldly.
And make it last.
Your subject goes through
a number of states.
After a while, their trauma,
that small, easily opened crack
makes them see things
that don't exist.
What did your poor Lucie see?
Nothing?
Not even a monster or two?
Things that wanted to hurt her?
A dead girl.
There you are...
A dead girl.
The girl you found, Sarah Dutreuil,
kept seeing cockroaches
running all over her.
She'd have cut her arm off
rather then bear that.
People no longer envisage
suffering, young lady.
That's how the world is.
There are nothing but victims left.
Martyrs are very rare.
A martyr is something else.
Martyrs are extraordinary beings.
They survive pain,
they survive total deprivation.
They bear all the sins of the earth,
they give themselves up,
they transcend themselves.
Do you understand that word?
They are transfigured.
Long Sheng Province. 1912.
This woman didn't believe in God.
She tried to steal a hen.
It cost her dearly.
When this photo was taken,
she was still alive. Look at her eyes.
Jouans-Lussac. 1945.
This woman was a grocer.
She slept with a Kraut.
At that time, the French
were touchy. She had to pay.
She was alive.
Look at her eyes.
Birmingham Hospital. 1960.
An ordinary housewife,
an atheist, in the terminal stages
of Cancer.
Morphine has no effect now.
Look at her eyes.
Beaten by her husband
in a fit of jealous rage.
Nine hours in a car wreck.
A young leukemia victim
in her final moments.
Stricken with a rare disease.
Nine hours of agony...
Look at her eyes.
All of them, young lady.
You hear me?
They were all alive
when photographed.
Don't try to tell me that
the notion of martyrdom
is an invention of the religious.
We tried everything, even children.
It turns out that women
are more responsive
to transfiguration.
Young women.
That's how it is, young lady.
Anna?
Are you there?
I'm here.
Yes, Lucie?
Why are you never scared?
I am scared sometimes.
Not like me.
I didn't go through what you did.
How do you stop being scared?
Let yourself go, I think.
You think so?
Let yourself go.
And if I can't, will you be there?
I miss you.
You're not scared now.
You're not scared now.
Not scared now.
You'll be all right, Anna.
Your suffering is almost over.
There's one more stage.
The last one.
You'll be all right. You won't
have to protect yourself ever again.
It's okay, Anna.
- She still bearing up?
- Amazing.
Michel!
What is it?
Just now. I went down to feed her.
- Are you sure?
- It's like I said.
I've never seen an expression like it.
She's let go, Completely let go.
Her face is like...
Mademoiselle...
her eyes... I swear, she no longer
sees anything around her.
But is she still...
She's alive, Mademoiselle.
Did you see?
The other world?
Yesterday afternoon,
in this very house,
at around 12:15 p.m.,
Anna Assaoui was martyred.
Let us pay our respects.
Anna Assaoui is an exceptional being.
In 17 years of endeavors,
she is only the fourth
to have attained that stage.
And the first, yes, my friends,
the first to have related
what she has seen.
Between 12:15 and 2:30 p.m.,
Miss Assaoui clearly saw
what lay beyond death.
You heard me, her state of ecstasy
lasted two hours and 15 minutes.
This was not
a near-death experience.
She experienced authentic
martyrdom.
At 2:30 p.m.,
she came out of this state.
At 3:05 p.m., she spoke.
At this very moment,
she is still alive.
But she has stopped
communicating.
Mademoiselle heard her testimony.
That testimony, dear friends,
will be shared with you in a moment.
Mademoiselle...
they're all waiting.
I'm coming, Etienne.
So there is something.
Of course.
Was it clear?
Crystal clear.
And precise?
It admitted of
no interpretations, Etienne.
Thank you, Mademoiselle.
Could you imagine
what there is after death?
Are you all right?
- Could you?
- No, Mademoiselle...
Keep doubting.
Martyr: n.
from the Greek "Martus":
Witness
- Whenever you're ready, doctor.
We're in the Chamfors
industrial zone.
It was on this very spot
that the child was found.
This is Building 1.
We have prefectorial authorization
to make this film
for the medical archives
of Assumption Hospital
Pediatric Services.
Here we are.
This is where she lived.
She wasn't raped.
That much is certain.
Otherwise it's a classic case
of child abuse.
Malnutrition, dehydration,
mild hypothermia.
The hole allowed her
to relieve herself.
The wrist infection indicates
she was tied down.
But how did she get out?
Lucie won't say
what she endured.
- Is that orange juice?
- Yes
- Is it for her?
- Yes.
You're a regular little mommy.
She has no one now.
Don't worry, Anna.
These gentlemen
are very nice.
Okay.
You understand why
we showed you this film?
Why do you think we need you?
Because you want
to catch the people who hurt Lucie?
That's right, Anna.
Lucie, too.
She says you have to catch them.
What else did she say...
She's scared.
She tells you things?
She's scared.
What does she remember?
She doesn't know who it was.
Sometimes she thinks she remembers,
sometimes she doesn't.
And what do you think?
Can she remember?
It was always dark.
She couldn't see much.
She doesn't remember.
Come in.
Lucie Jurin didn't come to lunch.
Anna...
Don't tell anybody.
Don't do that.
It wasn't me.
Calm down.
Want to get in with me?
15 YEARS LATER
Give me that!
That's enough, you two!
Pain in the ass!
His darling can't write!
Stop it, I said.
You rotten sister!
- Don't you touch me!
- Thats none of your business.
You don't know nothing about love.
You've got no friend.
You having breakfast or not?
We're coming.
Yo're such a pain in the ass!
I hate you!
MARIE BELFOND REGIONAL 100 METER
BUTTERFLY STROKE CHAMPION
That's how you talk about it?
How should I talk?
- Smartass!
And you wait until Sunday.
Told your mother?
What does she say?
That there's a water
pressure problem.
When she goes DIY,
she's not happy.
- And you're happy?
- Me?
- This is the high life.
- "This is the high life."
- Mission accomplished.
- Great.
Here...
A gift from the chief.
Oh shit, Gabrielle!
It's gross.
In the main pipe.
It explains the low shower pressure.
Dump it. We're eating.
Mom!
It's sickening,
but we can put the garden back.
Did Antoine mention
his great plans?
I was just asking
what you thought.
You were asking
if she wasn't mad.
Keep out of this.
But he's my brother.
Your darling brother's a visionary.
Right, Antoine?
It'll be an expensive school
to leave after just 3 months.
And with tuition paid in advance.
Do you mind!
She made the headlines.
- You gonna make this a habit?
- What?
You needed prep school
just to graduate.
- You just scraped by.
- But I graduated.
A good thing, too.
Remember what it cost?
The checks each term?
But did you give a damn?
Aren't you tired
of being such a pain?
But this school is different.
I want to study
something I like now.
Nobody forced you.
But law isn't my thing.
Law opens every door.
That's not the problem.
He wants to live with his sweetheart.
But law's not my thing.
If anything was your thing,
we'd know.
You wanted to drop out
to be a pastry cook, you dummy!
That's below the belt!
Who's the pain in the ass now?
Language, Marie Belfond!
- It's Sunday, after all.
- So?
What are you resting up from?
A hard week at the factory?
Don't move!
Sit down.
How old are you?
18.
Know what your parents did?
How could you do that to me?
How could you?
Why?
It's them.
- It's them, Anna.
- You saw them'?
They've changed. But it's them.
- You sure'?
- I'm telling you.
- It's been 15 years.
- It's them.
- You can tell from a newspaper photo?
- Yes!
- Let's call the cops.
- No need.
- What?
- I did what I had to.
- What?
- What I had to.
You had to observe.
You weren't sure.
But I am sure.
- I knew I should've come along.
- Why don't you believe me?
Where you calling from?
- The house.
- Their house?
Give me the address.
Give me the address!
I did it.
It's me, Lucie. Calm down.
It's me.
She's here.
- She's in the house.
- I know.
She hurt me even worse.
Look!
Stay here.
Where you going?
- To take a look.
- She's in there.
- I have to look.
- She's in there.
Look at me. I have to look.
Wait for me.
She hurt me worse than before.
I'm coming.
What will I do?
I'm coming.
- I'm out of cartridges.
- Do without them.
- Why don't we leave?
- Come on.
She'll be back.
Come on.
You phoned me from the house.
They'll know it's us.
I don't care.
Right.
I don't care.
If they lock you up, you'll care.
- What will we do?
- Keep still.
- It hurts.
- Sorry.
What will we do, Anna?
Are you okay?
Does it make you sick?
Can you smell it?
That awful smell?
I'd it when she bent over me.
Every day, understand?
When she beat me, I'd smell it.
Look.
It's them.
What are you doing?
Will I ever be free of this?
Please, don't make any noise.
What are you up to?
You Okay?
- I called you.
- I was here.
I thought she'd come back.
You finished?
- Then we'll go.
- After we clean up.
- Then we'll go?
- Sure. Get dressed.
- Open up, Anna.
- It's locked.
Open up.
Hurry!
What do you want?
Leave me alone!
I killed them.
Even their kids.
I even killed their kids.
Calm down.
Don't go in there, you little slut!
I'll kill you!
Forgive me.
It's not my fault.
Where are you?
I know you're in there. Open up.
I'm coming.
What's your name?
Gabrielle.
I'm coming, Lucie.
Help me, Gabrielle.
Why did she do this?
I think she heard us.
We have to hurry.
- An ambulance.
- I can't.
For my children.
I'll take you as far as the woods.
Then you're on your own.
Don't!
Don't, Lucie!
Why did you help her?
She didn't do anything.
She hurt me.
Me!
And you want her to live?
You never believed me.
Stop it.
You think I'm crazy,
just like the doctors.
What did they ever do for me,
apart from think me crazy?
And you're like them.
It's over, Anna.
They're dead.
They won't hurt you anymore.
Stop!
Why are you calling?
Not a word from you in two years,
and now you call?
I'm furious with you.
I won't hide it.
Mom...
Trying to make me feel guilty?
Think I don't blame myself?
Think my head's not filled
with all the crap I did?
That's not it, Mom.
Then what?
I wanted to talk to you.
I just felt like it.
So one morning you decide
you miss your mother?
So you're okay? Not in trouble?
You sure? Where are you?
Pretty far away.
Where you do sleep?
How do you live?
- I'm okay.
- You still with her?
You're under her influence.
Christ! You're still with her.
It's the same thing.
That girl's a good-for-nothing.
She's a bitch, a pervert, a loser...
Get away from her.
Don't move.
I can't help you.
Calm down.
Calm down.
Rest.
Forgive me.
Forgive me.
Stop it!
Who's the girl on the couch?
Who?
Lucie who?
Lucie Jurin.
And you?
- And you?
- Anna Assaoui.
- We've been calling for hours.
- The phone was off the hook.
This shouldn't have happened.
Can you tell me
what went on here?
What are you doing here?
Lucie Jurin escaped us 15 years ago,
didn't she?
Didn't she?
A time when we were,
shall we say, less organized.
Gabrielle shouldn't have let her
get away. The child found her.
After 15 years,
that takes some doing.
As for the rest,
Lucie is only a victim.
Like all the others.
It's so easy to create a victim,
young lady, so easy.
You lock someone in a dark room.
They begin to suffer.
You feed that suffering,
methodically,
systematically and coldly.
And make it last.
Your subject goes through
a number of states.
After a while, their trauma,
that small, easily opened crack
makes them see things
that don't exist.
What did your poor Lucie see?
Nothing?
Not even a monster or two?
Things that wanted to hurt her?
A dead girl.
There you are...
A dead girl.
The girl you found, Sarah Dutreuil,
kept seeing cockroaches
running all over her.
She'd have cut her arm off
rather then bear that.
People no longer envisage
suffering, young lady.
That's how the world is.
There are nothing but victims left.
Martyrs are very rare.
A martyr is something else.
Martyrs are extraordinary beings.
They survive pain,
they survive total deprivation.
They bear all the sins of the earth,
they give themselves up,
they transcend themselves.
Do you understand that word?
They are transfigured.
Long Sheng Province. 1912.
This woman didn't believe in God.
She tried to steal a hen.
It cost her dearly.
When this photo was taken,
she was still alive. Look at her eyes.
Jouans-Lussac. 1945.
This woman was a grocer.
She slept with a Kraut.
At that time, the French
were touchy. She had to pay.
She was alive.
Look at her eyes.
Birmingham Hospital. 1960.
An ordinary housewife,
an atheist, in the terminal stages
of Cancer.
Morphine has no effect now.
Look at her eyes.
Beaten by her husband
in a fit of jealous rage.
Nine hours in a car wreck.
A young leukemia victim
in her final moments.
Stricken with a rare disease.
Nine hours of agony...
Look at her eyes.
All of them, young lady.
You hear me?
They were all alive
when photographed.
Don't try to tell me that
the notion of martyrdom
is an invention of the religious.
We tried everything, even children.
It turns out that women
are more responsive
to transfiguration.
Young women.
That's how it is, young lady.
Anna?
Are you there?
I'm here.
Yes, Lucie?
Why are you never scared?
I am scared sometimes.
Not like me.
I didn't go through what you did.
How do you stop being scared?
Let yourself go, I think.
You think so?
Let yourself go.
And if I can't, will you be there?
I miss you.
You're not scared now.
You're not scared now.
Not scared now.
You'll be all right, Anna.
Your suffering is almost over.
There's one more stage.
The last one.
You'll be all right. You won't
have to protect yourself ever again.
It's okay, Anna.
- She still bearing up?
- Amazing.
Michel!
What is it?
Just now. I went down to feed her.
- Are you sure?
- It's like I said.
I've never seen an expression like it.
She's let go, Completely let go.
Her face is like...
Mademoiselle...
her eyes... I swear, she no longer
sees anything around her.
But is she still...
She's alive, Mademoiselle.
Did you see?
The other world?
Yesterday afternoon,
in this very house,
at around 12:15 p.m.,
Anna Assaoui was martyred.
Let us pay our respects.
Anna Assaoui is an exceptional being.
In 17 years of endeavors,
she is only the fourth
to have attained that stage.
And the first, yes, my friends,
the first to have related
what she has seen.
Between 12:15 and 2:30 p.m.,
Miss Assaoui clearly saw
what lay beyond death.
You heard me, her state of ecstasy
lasted two hours and 15 minutes.
This was not
a near-death experience.
She experienced authentic
martyrdom.
At 2:30 p.m.,
she came out of this state.
At 3:05 p.m., she spoke.
At this very moment,
she is still alive.
But she has stopped
communicating.
Mademoiselle heard her testimony.
That testimony, dear friends,
will be shared with you in a moment.
Mademoiselle...
they're all waiting.
I'm coming, Etienne.
So there is something.
Of course.
Was it clear?
Crystal clear.
And precise?
It admitted of
no interpretations, Etienne.
Thank you, Mademoiselle.
Could you imagine
what there is after death?
Are you all right?
- Could you?
- No, Mademoiselle...
Keep doubting.
Martyr: n.
from the Greek "Martus":
Witness