7/14/17 - RAW (2016) - 8/10

An absorbing and gruesome feast of dramatic horror. Raw is a coming of age chiller with a steadily increasing pulse of intensity, revulsion, and empathetic trepidation. It’s wild and jarring, but never beyond your grasp.

Ducournau weaves an enchanting tale full of anxiety, loneliness, sensuality, self-discovery, and gore; a heightened and tormented glance at adolescence, however askew. Much of the interplay between the repulsion and lust, be it with the blood she encounters, her sexual liaisons, or her place within the social maelstrom, speaks to her growing understanding of her own special womanhood and how f***ed up it all is.

There is a dark whimsy to her robust journey, full of enigmatic contradictions. Sense during puberty is a fleeting concept, which the wonderful lead actress Marillier grasps at through slatted fingers. Her ascent/descent was brilliantly masterminded as a winding road to madness & herself, speedily travelled with her companions’ reason and confusion. You always identify with her, even as the humanity of the situation grows frayed at the edges.

Ducournau’s use of color was so intelligent, so vibrant and eccentric. It reminded me of Argento, but more docile and deadened. Similarly, the soundtrack was gothic and truly on point. It possessed a welcome “Vlad Tepes” vibe.

Raw is so evocative and exemplary. Like Teen Wolf meets Cronenburg’s Crash, it is tremendously manipulative in the perfect of ways. An amazing feature debut for Julia Ducournau as she delivers a squishy & tummy tugging grotesquery of beauty and skill. Especially, with that gut punch of an end, which I did not see approaching. C’est magnifique!