Dario sets his hopes for escaping the slum life on his skills as a footballer; Denis is a womanising petty crook waiting for the big break. Dhino finds it in Pentecostal Christianity, but the path is bumpy, little Reginaldo just wants to drive a bus - and succeeds somewhat extravagantly!

A coming of age story, this female-directed movie explores a male world sustained by women. Brothers fall out but are there for each other. Life is lived in the atmosphere of an edgy criminality, and the family don't have much by way of material goods, the contrast with others being provided by the doctor's home that the mother cleans.

Hope of a brighter future is represented when the tired, old before her time and pregnant yet again mother comes home to find that the kitchen sink has been properly unblocked by Dario who has suddenly begun to care. Such a small matter, but it gives joy, pleasure and light to an otherwise weary existence. I'll never look at my free-flowing plug hole in quite the same way again.

Dhino, the Christian, is an interesting character, and presents a gritty realism of faith. He hobbles along trusting in Jesus, messing up frequently, but going on in faith and in the knowledge that he is accepted by God even though he is not perfect. His family and friends know his shortcomings and tease him mercilessly about his faith and failings but he keeps on going, making mistakes and walking with courage in a fallen world.

Sao Paolo is depicted as a dirty, crass sort of place, nowhere to raise a family, but the non-descript setting lets the family show themselves for who they are without the distraction of the exotic, and let's face it, there's nowhere more exotic than Brazil - or so I hear.

Finally, a truck driver,who thought she's a prostitute decides to find a hideout to get laid with her. Later in the night, a man finds him dead on the spot and Core, not far from there, covered with blood. This last, doctor and husband of Core, confort the young woman.

At the same time, Shane and June flying for Paris open a bottle of champagne for celebrating their honeymoon. The passengers sleep peacefully. Shane seems not so comfortable and leaves to lavatory. Being so anxious, Shane falls asleep in the cabin and sees his future wife in dream who is lengthened and covered with blood. After a few minutes, Shane leaves the place and finds his fiancee; he finally finds a way to fall asleep beside her. Once arrived, the engaged couple will finally be able to benefit from their honeymoon.

In the morning, Leo, the husband of Core, barricades the apartment, giving some drugs to his wife and leaving to work. At this time there; two young men are informed from this situation and try to penetrate their apartment...

At this time, he is surprised by Boris, a young man with lugubrious appearance who seems to be very anxious because of the loss of his bitch Bella. Under a beating rain, Marc asks him to accompany him until the inn where he could spend the night while waiting to repair his truck. Boris accepts and seems completely obsessed by the loss of his bitch. Finally arrived at the inn, Boris awakes Mr Bartel, the owner of the place. This last conduct him to the room;the reception is icy.

The next morning, at the time of his alarm clock, Marc is agreeably surprised by the enthusiasm of Mr Bartel to want to help the young singer with the repair of his truck. According to the place owner, who claims to have knowledge in mechanics, it is a problem of battery and it would be necessary to change it. While waiting for the battery that Mr Bartel would have ordered in the mechanic, this last suggests to him visiting the surroundings but disadvises to him going down to the village. According to him, the villagers would not be very accommodating...

Quickly, the policemen discover that the girl has been sequestred during 14 months in a refrigirated storage area and the experts conclude that she was mutilated but underwent nobody sexual violence.

Placed in a psychiatric hospital for children, Lucie is a very perturbed child and she doesn't like socializing.Nevertheless, Ana, one of the girl living in the hospital manages all the same to make friends with Lucie; the girls become inseparable.

15 years later, after she found her executioners, Lucie, accompanied with Ana, decides to take revenge and to murder the culprits of her traumatism.

The girls thus decide to get rid of the bodies of the victims and to leave places, but it will not be so easy to get rid of Lucie's past ghosts...

My opinion:

All the ingredients of a bloody horror movie are found in Martyrs:

A brilliant plot,amazing actress and an incredible stage setting.

Martyrs is the french gore movie of the year!

For Ömer, a boy of about 14, life is lived under the oppressive rule of a boorish, overbearing father. One old lady's comment on the male of the species is that they start of so sweetly as young boys, but as soon as they marry they change, and to hell with the lot of them. This certainly rings true in Ömer's experience, and it's not just women and children who fall under paternal domination; men of any age who still have a father living are under the thumb and are treated like naughty children.

Yakup too is somewhat disillusioned by his father and in his outrage he joins his friend Omer in his patricidal fantasies. Yakup has a crush on what we must all agree is a very pretty, young school teacher. He drools over her in class and loses his place on the page she tells him to read; he even has dreams about marrying her! One day he comes across his religious father stealing a long, furtive, lascivious peep through the teacher's bedroom window, and is totally disillusioned.

Then there's young Yildiz. She has started to grow up, to notice things, and is somewhat startled by life. She hears strange noises from her parents' bedroom and eventually links them to scenes of mating donkeys and dogs that she comes across when she's out with her friends.

It's a longish, slow film, but excellently acted and directed. The landscape is a star in its own right, with the village set high on a mountain that overlooks a huge lake (Lake Van?). The action is structured around the set times of Islamic prayer, and perhaps there is some intentionality in suggesting a juxtaposing of the claims of the faith with loyalty to the modern secular state and modern ways.

Life is oppressive, but the delights of adolescence triumph at times. The childhood that the three teenagers are starting to leave behind them was in many ways idyllic and carefree, but I was left wondering if the three friends were destined to grow into their parents, or would the pretty, young teacher give them enough of a glimpse of another life to challenge them to look for something else.

To supplement their meagre income, many of Melo's poor take out loans to set up in business in the hope of cashing in on the anticipated crowds who will come to see John Paul 2.

Most of these entrepreneurs hit on the idea of selling fast food to the would-be pilgrims, but Beto follows a different path and decides to build a toilet. He imagines, not entirely unreasonably, that the crowds who will have travelled far and waited a long time to see the Pope will all be willing to pay for the privilege of using his toilet, the only public facility in the area.

At last the great wealth, prestige and power of the Pope rolls into town and the hopes of the poor are heightened, although some suffer a bit of a guilty conscience about making money off the back of the Pope who they revere. The Chorizo sandwiches, holy knick-knacks and the fabled toilet are all on display, complete with price tags, but the expected crowd fails to materialise and the poor people are left disappointed and poorer than when they started, but at least Beto has a new toilet for his family to use.

The striking themes of the movie (well directed by Cesar Charloneand Enrique Fernandez), are the poverty of the people, the oppression they live under (corrupt customs officials etc) and their resilience. Their joy and contentment in spite of hardship is hard to understand, difficult to relate to perhaps; maybe they are well practiced, but their optimism seems indestructible. Even after the Papal disappointment their faith is unchanged.

The movie is humorous and poignant and the plight of the characters is convincingly portrayed by a solid cast. I was left with a wondering about the nature of hope and the resilience of the human race to rise against adversity.

It's a bit long but well worth the watch and deserving of the awards it has picked up.

Original title: “El baño del Papa”.

Two friends, recently divorced French men who each have custody of one ten year old child, decide (for non-romantic reasons) to share a house in London.

Antoine is domineering, uptight, the one who makes the rules and tries to enforce them. Lighten up Antoine. He declares that he's impotent as a result of his wife leaving him, but he's also the unwitting object of another woman's affections. How he fails to notice is anyone's guess.

Mathias is the randy womaniser who reluctantly agrees to Antoine's house rules but can't help staying out all night when the lovely Audrey makes an appearance, a definite infringement of the rules. Domestic tension is never far away.

Although they're best friends and have been for a long time, they are just not suited to co-habitation, at least not with each other. They start to behave like a mismatched married couple, complete with rows, fallings out, and loud silences, however they are reunited by a cunning plot hatched by their unbearable brats.

Antoine is unbelievable as a character but I couldn't help feeling something for Mathias, the wily philanderer. Then there is Yvonne, another French person who lives in this little corner of France located in London. Yvonne owns a bistro, and in her late 50s looks how Debby Harry might have looked at the same age if she'd enjoyed a more, shall we say, “relaxed” life. Fortunately she dies, but I fancy that what happened is that the actress got fed up with the movie and left town so they had to kill off her character.

But who cares?