Raw director Julia Ducournau on how to make a horror film as … – The Guardian

Julia Ducournau: My movies not a shocker, its not a blood fest; its more than that. Photograph: Supplied

Julia Ducournaus debut feature film, Raw, made headlines at Toronto last year when a couple of horrified audience members fainted in the cinema and an ambulance had to be called. All publicity is good publicity, but the director wasnt thrilled.

For me, its really something that I could have done without, Ducournau said in January in Paris, to tells a room full of press. Her film which opened this week in Australia had just screened; none of us fainted. I saw it snowball on the internet for a week afterwards, and theres pretty much nothing you can do about that. At one point people were talking about a movie that is not mine ... My movies not a shocker, its not a blood fest; its more than that.

Ducournaus cannibal horror film is as much body horror as it is black comedy and coming-of-age drama, and it uses the cinematic grammar of all three. Naive teen Justine (Garance Marillier) heads off to join her sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) at veterinary college. As part of a brutal hazing, she is forced to eat a rabbit kidney and thats when the cravings take hold.

The film is troubling, riveting, claustrophobic and darkly hilarious. The Guardians Peter Bradshaw was among many critics who praised it: What is very impressive about Raw is that absolutely everything about it is disquieting, not just the obvious moments of revulsion: there is no let up in the ambient background buzz of fear, he wrote.

At the Paris press event, Ducournau examined a few of the techniques that had got her there.

It should come as no surprise that a coming-of-age film about cannibalism, in which the protagonist is a virgin vegetarian woman, should be so much about flesh: the hating of it, the coveting of it, the grabbing and the biting of it. Key scenes revolve around intense physicality from the young actors, which meant the leads needed to get to know each other, fast.

From the first day of the shooting, I wanted them to be completely OK with each others bodies, Ducournau said. Obviously I didnt ask them to get naked in front of each other Im not a tyrant or a perv but I did ask them to watch horror movies together.

Under Ducournaus orders, Marillier, Rumpf and Rabah Nat Oufella (who plays Justines gay roommate and love interest, Adrien) gathered at Marilliers house before shooting began to watch scary movies.

When you watch horror movies together it creates something very intimate, the director said. For her part, she watches one a night. When youre scared, you tend to get a bit closer to the person next to you ... and because they are different gender, it was [especially] important to me that they were completely at ease with each other. Of course, I asked them to drink beer as well.

Much of the film takes place in college, particularly in college dorms, which swim in the organic, heaving messiness of teens. When you look in the room of a teenager, you will always have some food that is mixed with clothes and you always have these weird smells, Ducournau said. I wanted to give the impression of something that stinks a bit.

The heat and dank stickiness that pervades these rooms gives them a living, breathing quality that adds to the animalism of their inhabitants. But Ducournau wanted to somehow get her characters bodies to look less human, too. I wanted them to be like animals, on their all-fours, all the time, on their knees. So I asked the art director to put everything close to the ground.

The dorm beds are mattresses; the chairs are barely cushions; the desks are low and, if a character needs something, it will be at the bottom of the closet. The actors slouch and slump their shoulders, grasping at furniture to propel themselves through rooms; whole scenes play out on the floor.

Without me even saying a word to them, this seemed to give them a more animal-like posture, she said. It also meant they needed lots of carpeting on set. If theyre always on their knees, there has to be a reason why and the reason is because its cosy, its possible. Otherwise I think nobody would believe it.

Raw is the third film Ducournau has worked on with Marillier, after the directors short film, Junior, and her TV movie, Mange. We are very, very close to each other in real life. We have a strong bond. We trust each other very much, the director said. It allows us to push the boundaries further and further.

Marilliers character Justine morphs through the movie from virgin vegetarian to well, its a cannibal film. She is just so different between the beginning and the end and obviously we couldnt shoot in chronological order, Im not that famous, Ducournau laughed. It meant Marillier had to switch between characters in a day, sometimes from one shot to another. That was a big challenge for her

Another challenge was the physicality of the role. As the tension reaches its peak, Justine is shot tight and close in bed under a sheet, writhing and thrashing and scratching her skin as she physically fights her urges.

I described it to her as alike [to] when junkies try to come clean; I showed her what I wanted to see a lot of like Trainspotting and stuff. And when we finished shooting that scene, she was really in tears ... it was too intense somehow.

It didnt help that crew members had been prodding and poking the actor through the sheet. I wanted to create this sense that the body is super tensed and is expecting something to come and hit her, she said. She was really proud to have done this, afterwards; she was really, really relieved in a way, and very proud.

For all the talk of the fainting, only a few scenes in the film show the horror of cannibalism up close and, where she could, Ducournau kept clear of digital effects. I like prosthetics, I think theyre way more fun what you get on screen is way more vivid and organic and gross, she said. Its also really great when you bring prosthetics to a set its like everyone is back in summer camp, everyone wants to touch it, wants to taste it, maybe you put some blood on your face. Its good for the spirit [of the set].

The cannibalism scene audiences have been reacting to most is not particularly gratuitous in fact it involves something as small, and as common, as a finger. I could have chosen way worse than a finger, right? I could have made it, like, tripes, brain, buttocks, something big and fat, you know? But I did not, Ducournau said.

Fingers are, in a horrible way, bite-sized and we spend so much time with them near our mouths. Thats why it worked. We all know that there are two things in a finger: there is a bone, and there is a nail. And we know that if we take off the very small amount of skin that there is on it, you get right to the bone.

When she eats it, you actually dont see that much, because its hidden between her own fingers, Ducournau said. That was part of the plan too. There were some things I had to show, and some I had to leave to my audiences imagination.

Raw is showing in select Australian cinemas from 20 April

Guardian Australia visited Rendez Vous with French Cinema in Paris as a guest of UniFrance

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