![]() This curious relationship goes beyond the provocative, posing questions about gendered identification in a deceptively subtle manner. ![]() Engine sounds seamlessly blend into a child's imitation of this mechanical hum, designating a link between machine and human from the action's very onset. Later characterized by intense gore that transforms bodies from conventional humans to abstract meat, the film opens with a montage of close-ups on the inside of a car. In Titane, a female serial killer named Alexia who has sex with cars, poses as a fireman's long-since disappeared son in order to evade capture. Letterboxd user matt lynch called the film “A tremendous work about what it means to be meat,” evoking a continuation of Ducournau's interest in the body's tenuous humanity. This feature sets the tone for her sophomore project Titane, released in 2021 and awarded that year's prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. ![]() Against this nightmare-inducing backdrop, Ducournau paints a tender portrait of sisterhood and female kinship. This is the scene that comes to mind when I think of French filmmaker Julia Ducournau's first film, the 2016 horror film Raw, which tells the story of a vegetarian veterinary school student who develops cannibalistic urges after tasting meat for the first time. There is no such fantasy in Raw despite everything that happens involving Justine, Alexia and other members of the student body - not to mention their bodies and some of their members - our heroines stay recognizably and sometimes unpleasantly human.A woman ravenously bites into her sister's severed finger. One of the best horror films to deal with these subjects was 2000’s Ginger Snaps, but even that terrific little movie kept some distance from the heart of the matter by making poor Ginger the victim of a werewolf bite. The pressure to go along, whether with the often sadistic and pointless hazing antics, the excessive drugs and sex at the campus parties or her own family traditions (her parents are veterinarians as well), clearly begins to eat at Justine’s nerves it doesn’t help that she finds more comfort in the company of her gay Muslim roommate (Rabah Nait Oufella, a whole other movie walking around inside this one) than her sister, who resentfully sees Justine as their parents’ favorite.īut it’s no accident that Alexia is right in the thick of things when Justine begins to experience an entirely foreign set of sensations and desires, precipitating the launch of a whole new raft of metaphors concerning sibling rivalry and female sexuality. ![]() Right from the get-go, the social commentary in Raw takes center stage, particularly when it comes to the nastier side of hazing - although at this point, after a number of movies dealing with the subject, I don’t think there is any other side (one scene has a boy and girl who seem to barely know each other, one painted yellow and one painted blue, thrown into a room together and told not to come out “until you’re green”). Justine, already on the shy, brainy side and not into school parties or hazing at all, is forced to down that kidney - an act that awakens in her first a terrifying allergic reaction on her skin, and then a desire for more flesh, and not necessarily that of animals. It turns out that even high-minded students who wish to save the lives of animals have their own brutal hazing rituals for freshmen, one of which involves eating a slab of raw meat, in this case a rabbit kidney. Raw is the story of first-year university student Justine (an astounding Garance Marillier), a vegetarian like the rest of her family - including her sister and second-year student Alexia (an equally magnificent Ella Rumpf) - who is attending veterinary school. Several people reportedly fainted during a screening at the latter gathering, and it’s not hard to imagine that happening at all: Raw is one hell of a grisly movie to withstand, but like all great or near-great horror, its plentiful blood and guts are in service of a number of higher themes. The first filmmaker that comes to mind while watching Raw is Canadian legend David Cronenberg, but even Cronenberg’s first couple of features – as jarring and morbidly compelling as they were - may not have achieved quite the same complete control and confidence that French writer/director Julia Ducournau exhibits in her feature debut, an instant feminist horror classic which opened in limited release this weekend after stunning viewers last year at the Cannes and Toronto film festivals.
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