Stunning coming-of-age story about cannibalism.
Raw was reviewed at Fantastic Fest, and doesn't yet have a release date.
Raw is an audacious feature debut from writer-director Julia Ducournau, one that takes the coming of age template, and gives it a bloody, flesh-eating twist. It’s also a film that’s apparently caused audience members to faint at early festival screenings. Yet while the scenes of cannibalism are brutal and the violence at times extreme, Raw never feels gratuitous or exploitative.
Justine (Garrance Marillier) is a staunch vegetarian who, when proceedings commence, is being packed off to vet school. But there’s something foreboding about the facility she’s to study at, the school next to both the hospital and morgue.
And it’s all a bit Lord of the Flies, the hazing starting almost immediately, and involving ‘rookies’ having to respect their ‘elders’ as they are bullied in ever-more extreme ways.
Her sister is one of these ‘elders’ but she’s little help or support, treating her younger sibling with disdain; the competition between the pair causing genuine tension as they compete for attention or boys.
Garrance Marillier as Justine.
Initiation follows, and finds Justine having to eat raw rabbit kidneys – very much against her will – and being drenched in animal blood in a scene that harks back to Carrie’s most famous sequence. But in spite of the fact that this treatment gives Justine a violent rash all over her body, it also sets something off inside her.
It starts with the youngster developing an appetite for cooked meat in the canteen. She then moves onto raw meat. And finally human flesh in a grandstanding scene that revolves around an accident with some scissors that’s as shocking as it is darkly comic.
From here-on-in it’s a question of how far Justine will go to satisfy her new appetite. Yet this isn’t stalk-and-slash horror, with Ducournau’s script more interested in exploring the mental and physical breakdown that can occur when the vulnerable are thrown into such a stressful situation.
And she teases a quite brilliant performance out of Marillier, who perfectly captures that vulnerability in the film’s early scenes as Justine awakens both sexually, and cannibalistically.
But it’s the way in which she transforms in the film’s final few sequences that really impresses, Justine filled with the power and strength that human flesh gives her. It’s a remarkable transition that has you rooting for her in spite of what she’s doing, and turns Justine into one of the year’s great horror heroines.
Special mention should also go to Jim Williams' stunning score. Williams – who created the amazing soundscapes for Ben Wheatley’s Kill List and A Field in England – here crafts a rousing organ refrain that perfectly complements Ducournau’s beautifully framed shots.
All of which makes for a surprisingly sweet and tender film about a pretty ugly subject. One that features a spectacular central performance from Marillier, and marks out writer-director Ducourau as a major new voice in genre cinema.
The Verdict
Raw is as lyrical a film about cannibalism as you are ever likely to see, so ignore the hype about audience members fainting or being sick, and instead revel in the strange beauty of its twisted tale.
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