If you intend to see the French teenage cannibal movie
Raw, maybe don’t make dinner plans for immediately
afterwards. Writer/director Julia Ducournau’s stunning debut is unsettling to
say the least, and most viewers will have to—I can’t believe I’m doing this
already—let this one digest.
When reading the phrase “French teenage cannibal movie,”
it’s easy to assume you’re in for bloody, brutal, exploitation shenanigans.
While there’s certainly blood and no shortage of holy-shit moments I watched
with my mouth open, my stomach churning, and my heart beating in my throat,
there’s so much more going on. Cannibalism is a vehicle to tell a story of
bonding between two women, to show the tender horror of a shy young woman on
her own for the first time, and of women taking control over who they are. Raw
is sad and touching and way, way funnier than dramatic films about teenagers
eating folks usually are.
Justine (Garance Marillier) comes from a family of
vegetarian veterinarians. She’s sheltered and shy, but also something of a
prodigy, and when she arrives at vet school, a whole new world opens up before
her. Compelled to eat raw meat as part of a hazing ritual, it kicks
off a burgeoning taste for flesh that escalates until, well, if you’ve read
this far, I imagine you can guess where it leads.
Apparently vet school is way more out of control than I
thought—maybe French vet school is the party place and I never knew. Campus is
like a combination of twisted ritualistic military academy—the students are
called conscripts, taught to blindly obey orders, and forced to participate in
school traditions—crossed with a Lord of the Flies summer
camp, as these seemingly unsupervised kids devolve into a chaos of sex, drugs,
and animal care. Regardless, poor, sweet, innocent Justine is far out of her
depth; wide-eyed and aghast. It doesn’t help that she’s an awkward weirdo who
talks about monkey rape over lunch.
Ducournau captures Justine’s displacement with a keen eye.
Nightmarishly gorgeous long shots follow her through the chaotic throng of
booze-fueled dance parties where bodies press her into corners and she has no
power or control, adrift on rugged, uncaring seas. Lush reds, cold blues, and a
droning prog-rock score evoke Argento, Bava, and Fulci. But even moments
where Justine is alone, in her own bed, under a sheet, are claustrophobic and distressing.
Like many movies with young adult protagonists,
Raw is a story of self-discovery, though certainly one like
we’ve rarely seen. The product of oppressive parents—ironic because they
oppressively beat their progressive values into their kids—Justine has never
made her own choices. She’s vegetarian because her parents force her, she goes
to vet school because her parents did, and so on. Her journey to eating human flesh
is an exertion of her will, her first; she consumes for once, instead of being
consumed. After the first time she eats meat and develops a sadistic rash, her
skin literally peels off, revealing something new beneath. It awakens deep desires
of all kinds.
And Garance Marillier is just a monster talent, tracking
Justine from mousey and timid to hungry in every way. The whole film hinges on
her performance, and we watch her struggle with her developing hunger for flesh
and a lurid eroticism, and the audience feels each beat and tug. She’s funny
and uncomfortable and human, full of hope and despair and confusion and drive.
At the same time Raw walks harrowing
horror story lines, there’s a delicate coming-of-age story. Free and unfettered
for the first time, Justine finally discovers who she is. She bonds with her
sister, Alex (Ella Rumpf), an older student at the vet college who’s already
gone through this process, and who has her own secrets. It’s a moving, if dark,
tale of female friendship and the warts-and-all bond between two women.
As serious as it is, a droll, grotesque sense of humor
permeates Raw—sometimes it’s difficult to know whether to
laugh or vomit. Ducournau peppers her film with almost surreal moments of
twisted wit. From an old man with false teeth in a waiting room to Justine and
Alex having a casual conversation while the elder sibling has her arm—to the
shoulder—up a cow to a sisterly crotch waxing gone wrong.
Ducournau juxtaposes these moments of levity with startling
brutality, deftly migrating from one to the other, delicately balancing tone as amusement turns to open-mouthed awe. The first time Justine eats human flesh, I
went from laughing one second to watching breathless, eyes wide, leaning
forward in my seat.
The construction—from visuals to sound to plot and pacing
and tone—show the confidence and control normally attributed to a much more
experienced filmmaker. Layered and symbolic, measured and wild, and provocative
as hell, Raw is a remarkable movie in a vacuum; it’s a damn marvel
considering it’s a debut. [Grade: A]
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