Raw
Directed by Julia Ducournau
France 2016
PLOT
Justine is a vegetarian teenager who enrolls in veterinary school, the same one her older sister Alexia attends. As part of the traditional hazing rituals for freshmen, she is forced to eat raw rabbit meat. For Justine, this will mark the beginning of a profound change, both personally and within her family.
THOUGHTS
The film that brought Ducournau into the spotlight is undoubtedly far more complex and layered than what might initially seem like a simple movie about cannibalism. **RAW** is an odyssey that encompasses a girl’s transition from adolescence and puberty into adulthood: we watch her timidly enter university as a vegetarian, only to leave it—after an hour and forty minutes of film—completely transformed. The hazing, the consumption of raw meat, her body’s reaction to digesting the meat, and the instinctive craving for it that follows, her encounter/confrontation with her sister Alexia, the loss of her virginity, and the final revelations are all marked stages in a journey filled with obstacles that will radically change the young protagonist. It’s a technically beautiful film, convincingly acted, that spares nothing, both in terms of its extreme visual content and its psychological depth. The real star of the film is the **meat**, presented to us as a drug for the mind, body, and instincts—an element capable of awakening and managing primal urges, yet still guiding the film’s core relationships: between Justine and her friend Adrien, between the two sisters, and between the parents. A unique film, aesthetically stunning, where blood, tension, and plot twists are in no short supply. You can watch **Raw – A Raw Truth** by purchasing it on Tim Vision, YouTube, and Chili.
PANDEMONIC MOMENT
The furious fight between Justine and Alexia, who violently and angrily bite each other in front of everyone.
