For whatever reason, the timings have come around to me now watching the epic French movie Martyrs today. I can perhaps relate more to this movie than most and it has reinforced some things for me, but has also highlighted a problem that I have.
The second act of the movie is really what interests me, from Lucie’s death onward. It is here that we see the background to the first act and we also see Lucie’s failed martyrdom. From this point we learn that there is a shadowy secret society that are kidnapping children and punishing them to the point of death to understand the secrets of the afterlife. Led by the ambiguous Mademoiselle this cult formed for elite type rich old people is exactly what we are all warned about with this 0.1% of humanity. It is this group who represent all of our fears as average people, it is they who we fear know the answers to questions like “Why is the world in such a mess?” & “who are the puppet masters controlling us?”. It is exactly this type of human who has everything in life, that is concerned with the afterlife and invests money in having someone else find out for them.
If I look at the movie from a metaphorical perspective it follows a pattern that is very familiar to me, as I lived it. It is the pattern of the new testament of the Christian Bible. The characters in the movie can be substituted for placeholder concepts, and the physical abuse for mental abuse, although the movie features both obviously.
If I were to draw a comparison between Anna’s journey in the movie and my own it would look something like this:
| Laz | Anna |
| Empathic do-gooder – Does what is right in the workplace for a group of colleagues in a business that will not survive, at the expense of ones own reputation and mental health | Empathic do-gooder – Helps a mentally sick girl who self harms and cannot get better, at the expense of her own future and mental health |
| Faces great resistance from those around – Is bullied to the point of collapse from an organised group who use expendable an individual to drive him to despair | Faces great resistance from those around – Has to clean up Lucie’s mess and do the heavy lifting of protecting and hiding Lucie, which has been orchestrated by an organised group who use Lucie to get at Anna |
| The organised group reveal themselves and impress their goal on me – I surrender to my imagined fate from the mental punishment that I receive | The organised group reveal themselves and impress their goal on Anna – Anna is forced into submission through repeated beating and is used up to the point of surrender to her fate |
| An awakening happens – for me through though Kundalini and spiritual ecstasy is thrust upon me, with sensations and visions accompanying it along with glimpses of the afterlife. | An awakening happens – Anna is skinned alive and crucified causing a spiritual ecstasy to occur with sensations and visions of bright light and with glimpses of the afterlife. |
| A return to tell all – I return from this experience to document it and tell others of its existence. | A return to tell all – Anna returns from her experience to tell Mademoiselle what happened. |
| A death process occurs – I can never go back to being that person I was before, I metaphorically die and everything has changed | A death process occurs – Anna is disfigured to the point of being unable to live and dies |
| A martyrdom occurred – I was martyred for what I believed and how I acted in life, I did nothing wrong and always had the best interest of those around me at heart | A martyrdom occurred – Anne was martyred for what she believed and how she acted in life, she did nothing wrong and always had the best interest of those around her at heart |
So what we see in this movie is the modern representation of an old process, it is a process that is known and has been told in many ways for thousands of years. It is an especially gruesome tale in the movie, but even this is a realisation of a known story, say of Bartholomew the Apostle.
What is the point of the movie? I would argue that it is to show how to live a life in the style of Jesus Christ. To endure the unendurable and to be rewarded for it with some great spiritual truth, which the lazy rich elites of the world crave but are too cowardly to go through themselves. And here we reach the fundamental contradiction of life. There are no easy paths to a spiritual union and as we see in the movie. Those who pay for this evil to happen to Anna and all those that went before her, do not gain the secret which they seek, and will never by taking short cuts. Now this is not to say that gaining spiritual enlightenment is a long process, but it certainly is an arduous one and the likes of those spoiled elites who have never done a hard day’s work in their lives will not, and do not gain any knowledge from Anna’s transference. This is shown clearly through Mademoiselle’s demise, who is told something by Anna, and she kills herself after hearing it and she is unable to tell the others.
I have some questions though after watching this movie:
- Was Anna always targeted from the early days at the orphanage? We know that Lucie had already been a victim of the cult before she met Anna, and perhaps Anna’s early years were a pre-selection for what came later.
- Did Anna actually die outright at the end? It seems to have been left ambiguous with her just resting in a tank at the end. And as I have had a second life, a metaphorical resurrection as it were maybe she does as well.
- What of my future then, am I still being subject to the whims of evil? With my mother’s recent passing I feel my life is still a test for me, in that I am in that place of love beyond emotion and pain which could be perhaps a study topic for someone!
- What of the Martyrdom cult in the movie. They have been knocked back by this failure to learn anything, but I’m sure they will keep on trying with other girls and with a new Mademoiselle leader? Those photos in the dungeon of past “Martyrs” to their cause going back maybe 100 years, show that they have been doing this process for some time, The whole subject of child trafficking for nefarious purposes is clearly a concern for humanity in 2023 in the real world. Could something like this movie, or worse, be happening in secret all around us and hidden just out of sight?
The main question that lingers for my own life is what happens next? What kind of experience is in store for someone who went through this process, came back to tell all, and then carried on with their life. I thought I was free of a watcher group surveilling me and perhaps nudging me towards something more, but am I?