Written and directed by French filmmaker Pascal Laugier and starring Morjana Alaoui and Mylène Jampanoï, Martyrs depicts the path a woman takes to exact her revenge for the physical abuse she suffered as a child. The film's title refers to people who take the torturous madness that comes with suffering or trauma and transcends those feelings to a point of acceptance that gives insight to this world and the one beyond. Essentially Martyrs, like Us, tackles the idea that traumatic moments never leave the psyche and that they impact adulthood in extreme ways. In Us, Red's kidnapping from the Santa Cruz boardwalk as a child kickstarts a violent chain of events that leads to the Tethered's rebellion, exposes our nation's neglect of the disenfranchised masses, and tears our country apart.
For those interested in additional research, directors Kevin and Michael Goetz remade this film in 2015.
You can watch Martyrs online on iTunes.