Autumn. An open road. In the distance, a dot walks into a young woman. In the opposite direction, a car doing what cars do. Driving. Cut to where the woman was: an open road. The car passes, the woman emerges from behind a bush and throws herself in front of the vehicle which swerves out-of-the-way and crashes into a tree. Thud! Birds twitter. Leaves bristle in the breeze. The woman stands up, approaches the car and leans into the driver’s window. Cut to the opening titles in blood-red typeface against a stark black backdrop. WTF!

And WTF! will be your likely reaction to most of the left-field, acerbic and gory events which populate writer and director Julia Ducournau’s impressive debut feature Raw (French title: Grave) which has quite rightfully won a number of prestigious awards including International Federation of Film Critics Prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and more recently First Feature Competition Winner at the 2016 BFI London Film Festival. The title and the subject matter may be Raw, but Ducournau’s taut script and exquisite direction is far from it.

Justine (Garance Marillier) is a vegetarian. She doesn’t eat meat. Unlike her randy gay roommate Adrien (Rabah Naït Oufella) who counters her concern that she expected a female dorm companion with a nonchalant retort befitting of a Frenchman: “They got you a fag, same thing.” Relationships and personalities established, Justine’s world is turned upside down during “Rush Week” (Freshers’ Week) – which given the amount of sex everybody but Justine is having should be renamed “Thrush Week” – when she and her fellow veterinary students are asked to eat raw rabbit kidneys as part of a series of outlandish initiation rituals.

The following day, an itch refuses to yield to a scratch, a red rash crawls across her skin like a plague of locusts and she develops an unhealthy appetite – for meat. Oh mon Dieu! A burger is stolen from the canteen. A breakfast of milk and cereal is ditched for raw chicken fillets. And a finger of fudge is given the middle finger for an, erm, finger. But it is not only her eating habits which are changing, for the cannibalism which follows is a metaphor for growing up: rebellion, experimentation, sexual awakening and freedom. Hence her speedy transformation from a virginal teacher’s pet who thinks a Brazilian is a nut into a literal man-eater whose favourite track goes something like “Fuck your 69, Give me 666.”

The small cast, which includes Laurent Lucas and Joana Preiss as Justine’s typical French parents and Ella Rumpf as her self-proclaimed “weird” sister Alexia who pees standing up and took two hours to discover that her lumber for the night only had one hand, are on top form. As is British television and film composer Jim Williams (Hotel Babylon, Auf Wiedersehen Pet) and Belgian cinematographer Ruben Impens whose stark photography and exquisite framing is complimented by the former’s raw, jangly score. But the real credit goes to writer and director Julia Ducournau who, with a modest budget of around €3.5 million, has created one of the most enjoyable and original films of the year.

Video courtesy of: Universal Pictures UK

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Peter Callaghan
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