Martyrs and Bronson
I’ve been bored with Hollywood lately. Every recent movie has been something related to fantasy or science fiction, which aren’t my favourite genres. Don’t get me wrong, I love giant mechanical ______ blowing up other mechanical _______ with bullets/explosives/cows/lasers as much as the next guy, but it gets old. Real old.
So on the recommendation of a friend, I decided to watch two movies from across the (Atlantic) pond. The first movie was Martyrs, and the second was Bronson. The first one destroyed my life, the second one made me laugh a lot.
Before I talk about Martyrs, I have a confession; I can’t watch movies with gore. I’m not talking about cheesy action movie gore, but detailed, created for the purpose of disgusting you gore in the style of Hostel and Saw. I barely made it through about 3 of the Saw movies before deciding it just wasn’t worth it anymore. Martyrs is an odd movie. To call it a movie created solely to gross people out would be a mistake, but it does contain a lot of graphic violence. The first half of the movie contains a lot of suspense, dark insinuations, and blurred memories. The second half is pounding, gore pornography. It eventually ends with some vague philosophical, moral lesson, but not enough to justify the graphic content of the movie to me.
Bronson was a fun ride most of the way through. A fictionalized account of Britain’s most violent prisoner, the movie follows the life of Charles Bronson, the man who loves prison so much, that he’ll do anything to stay in it. Much like Martyrs, the movie is disturbing, but at a more fundamental level. Bronson is a man who’s violent for the sake of violence. Tom Hardy plays the role of a lifetime, as he kicks, punches, dances, and even…paints his way across the screen. The sharp savagery is interspersed with monologues by Bronson in exaggerated stage makeup, speaking to an imaginary audience. Somehow Hardy manages to make these scenes even more disturbing than graphic violence.
The movie explores how flawed the justice system can be, and what happens when you introduce someone into jail who actually wants to be there. The movie is also really, really funny, especially when they put Bronson in situations where he has to act like a normal human being. His attempted courtship of someone who really has no wish of being courted is especially humorous.
My only gripe with the movie is the sometimes unnecessarily slow scenes.
One scene in particular stands out; Bronson dancing at a lunatic asylum, while the camera zooms slowly… very, very slowly. This is repeated with other scenes, like Bronson sitting in a chair. I don’t have to be a film student to say that scenes like these were out of place, and very boring in a movie that was definitely not meant to be a slow drama.
I know Bronson is going to be released soon in North America (or has it been released already?), but I would say the trailers misrepresent the movie somewhat. It’s worth more a rental than a theatre visit.