[The trailer is a bit NSFW]
How's your appetite for cannibalism in movies these days? They usually center around zombies and The Walking Dead, but the new French horror film Raw brings it back to the living. And it's not to everybody's taste.
French filmmaker Julia Ducournau's film follows Justine, a newbie at vet school who is unsure of the world around her. Caught up in a chaotic first few weeks at a strange vet program (frat-style hazing and "Hell Week"; is this normal to starting school, any vets out there?), this lifelong vegetarian is forced to eat raw meat as a hazing ritual. Looks like it starts off a chain reaction of her ever-increasing, terrifying behavior.
Her older sister Alexia, also at the school as a student, and her gay roommate, the gorgeous Adrian (it's France, they don't care) both egg her on and shield her from the chaos of her new found cannibalistic urges. You know how Freshman year is.
The uncomfortable, increasingly twisted gross-out horror comes rapidly as Justine's hunger moves from curiosity to insatiability. Garance Marillier, as Justine, gives a go-for-broke performance as an unhinged student discovering her sexuality, her bloodlust, and her stellar vet studies all at the same time. It's an impossible acting chore for this far-out role but she manages as well as one could hope.
Director Ducournau creates some indelible shots in the film (lots of animals - horses, dogs) in both movement and as carcasses. She has a keen eye for stark beauty and clinical, medical chills. The film gave me shades of Cronenberg's body-morphing films, as well as the brutal Catherine Breillat film Fat Girl.
There was also an odd dark, dark humor in Raw. The whole set-up of the story, and the eventual pay-off is so over-the-top at times, it may bring a few nervous laughs. Melancholy, dark humor, brutality; I have no idea what Ducournau will bring to her next film, but I will definitely watch.
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