When you’ve seen as many horror films as I have, and have been a fan of the macabre genre since a young child, then you can find yourself often hard-pressed in discovering new films that actually affect you; films that dare you to watch even when the happenings on screen force you to look away in disgust and terror. Raw, from French writer-director Julia Ducournau, is one of these films. Raw is the hardest horror film I’ve watched in years, leaving in its wake a bad, bad taste in my mouth (and certainly its main character’s mouth as well), but one very much worth enduring.
Raw centers around Justine (Garance Mallinier), a bright teenager starting her freshman year at a prestigious French veterinary school. She’s following in the footsteps of her parents, who originally met at the school, as well as her older sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf), who simultaneously attends the school. Justine stands out among her new peers because she, alongside her entire family, practices vegetarianism, and she’s been strictly taught her entire life to absolutely never consume meat.
By the first night on campus, the freshman of the school succumb to one of many imminent hazings performed by the upperclassmen. Although the hazing results in an open invitation to a rave-esque party, Justine isn’t very interested. She’s a quiet, introverted “kid genius” archetype. Unsurprisingly, Justine rejects the proceeding hazings, up until she is confronted with having to eat a raw rabbit kidney in order to prove her worth to her peers. She initially refuses, but is inevitably forced by her sister to eat it. Unbeknownst to Justine and her parents, Alexia has become quite adventurous in her years at the school and now regularly eats meat.
Justine’s obvious repulsion to ingesting the kidney isn’t necessarily telling of what’s to come from her first time eating meat (it was a raw kidney she ate, after all). It’s when she later finds sickening rashes covering much of her body and becomes quite literally bloodthirsty that we see firsthand the ramifications of the action. Justine continues to eat varieties of both raw and cooked meats at first, but it isn’t long before she adopts much more sinister ways to quell her hunger.
I’ve seen plenty of zombie films in my time (hell, my favorite film ever is a zombie flick), so you’d think I’d be able to easily stomach the human-on-human cannibalizing depicted in Raw. But I don’t know if it was the starkly realistic effects that did me in, or the fact that I disliked watching this conscious, innocent girl instinctively chow down on human flesh that sealed it. Likely it was a bit of both factors. Either way, I was genuinely repulsed at the feeding scenes, whether they were the minuscule episodes or the much more frequent extended sequences that effectively showcase the brutality of Justine’s new rituals.
Still, I couldn’t look away from Raw. Its unique coming-of-age story captivated me like few films have been able to this year. Julia Ducournau packs her film with obvious anti-meat sentimentality but also some pro-feminist themes, specifically by highlighting society’s impact on the correlation between body image issues and young girls as well as through subverting male-female power dynamics.
Raw hits all the right notes on the technical side of things too. Ducournau directs her tight script with precision, and the talented actors and actresses who make up the cast deliver believable performances within an unbelievable story. Garance Marillier especially shows potential in her sinister breakout leading role. With the aid of cinematographer Ruben Impens, Ducournau’s eye for contrasting beauty and ugliness makes for a visually striking film, while Jim Williams’ chilling score is similarly stunning to hear alongside the disturbing imagery.
There are undoubtedly some barriers that are keeping me from wholeheartedly recommending Raw to everyone I know — specifically in that it’s a foreign-language film and has some quite disturbing content that’s not easy to handle. It’s not going to be a mainstream hit nor would it ever be accepted with open arms by something like the larger Netflix-consuming crowd. But Raw is special. If you aren’t averse to subtitles (God forbid you have to read while watching) and believe you’re up to the task, then Raw is without a doubt one of the best horror films you could consume this year.
4.5 stars out of 5
— Michael Lane, Blog Editor
