Raw opens with a shot of a car traveling on a country road. A figure darts out into the roadway and lies down, causing the car to veer off the road and smash into a tree. Then the figure gets up and runs over to the victim in the car, almost hungrily.
If you think thats disturbing, thats only the beginning. French writer-director Julia Ducournaus debut film is a disgusting, twisted, but strangely empowering movie, part horror film and part coming-of-age drama.
Justine (Garance Marillier) is a 16-year-old girl whose mother, father and older sister are all vegetarian veterinarians (say that five times fast). As the movie opens, Justine is being sent away to the veterinary school that her whole family has attended, a strange place in the remote French countryside.
Justines sheltered life has little prepared her for the strange world of the school, where the teachers are barely present, the older students mercilessly haze the incoming freshmen, and everybody gets together for all-night raves. Amid the pranks, which include being doused with blood and paint and forced to crawl through the parking lot, Justine meets up with her older sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf), who goads her into going along with the schools weird rituals and nonstop party lifestyle. In many ways, Raw is the story of any young college student, far from home, getting in way over her head with the sudden freedom of campus life.
And then, in key ways, Raw is nothing like the story of any other college students. One of the hazing rituals requires Justine to eat a rabbits kidney. She chokes it down, gagging. But she finds that she likes the taste of raw meat and needs more. She graduates to gorging herself on her roommates raw chicken. Then, after eating all creatures great and small, she eyes her classmates, and gets ravenous for a different kind of flesh.
Justines descent into lets just come out and say it cannibalism is gross, of course. Ducournau paints the clinical white rooms and lab coats of the veterinary school with great swooshes of bright red. Even though the film usually shows the grisly aftermath rather than the meal itself, Raw is not for the squeamish. This is the first movie I can remember seeing that has received an "R" rating for "aberrant behavior."
But get past the gore, and Raw is surprisingly thoughtful about using Justines descent as a metaphor for innocence yielding to experience. Marillier gives a fearless performance, seeming to age at least 10 years as the movie goes on, and the tense relationship with her wilder older sister feels authentic.
If you can stomach it, Raw is a film thats a full meal.
Link:
Movie review: French horror film is one 'Raw' viewing experience ... - Madison.com
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Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero