GRAVE/ RAW
France, 2016, 99 minutes, Colour.
Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Nait Oufella, Laurent Lucas, Joanna Preiss, Bouli Lanners, Marion Vernoux.
Directed by Julia Ducournau.
The Australian distributors of this film are Monster Pictures. And, indeed, some of the characters are monstrous in their behaviour but not in the world of fantasy but in the real world.
The basic narrative is fairly straightforward: the younger daughter of a family goes to begin her veterinary studies and is immediately forced into the hazing that goes on for many days in “Rush Week�, a period of humiliations and ultra-raucous behaviour (showing extreme amount of controlling peer group pressure). She is a vegetarian and is forced to eat a piece of raw rapid liver – with dire consequences, starting with shingles, her feeling unwell, and then developing an appetite which is certainly not vegetarian. The people involved with this changing her are her older sister, also studying to be a vet, and her gay friend.
This is a first film by young French director, Julia Ducournau, was obviously interested in psychological allegory with more than a touch of horror, with quite an emphasis on blood and gore. That is, in itself, a warning for those who have different tastes (actually that serves as a pun on the themes of the film).
Searching around for her to describe the allegory, the following description came up: the emergence from the vegetarian of a subconscious increasingly voracious carnivorous compensation. This means that the film is definitely a psychological drama with effects that are both psycho and somatic.
Justine, the younger sister, resists the emergence from the subconscious, is exceedingly puzzled by it, shocked at the various episodes with herself and her sister, and not dealing with them well at all. Another drive that emerges is the sexual.
Just as we might be puzzling about the final episodes, there is a vivid reminder that the influences on a person’s life both nature and nurture, and that it is wise to find out what has been inherited from parents.
In recent years, the French have made a number of films like this, psychological dramas but moving into areas that remind audiences of the drives that are seen in vampire, zombie and living dead films.
1. Critical acclaim for the film? The touches of the horror genre? Blood and gore? Cannibalism?
2. A symbolic psychological interpretation film? Subconscious desires? The vegetarian? Carnivorous desire? I voracious increase? A psychological subtext? And the link with sexuality, virginity, intercourse?
3. The French setting, the town, restaurants, study institutions, homes, the campus, the rooms, sport, the veterinary laboratories? The musical score?
4. The French title and its implications and tone? The English title? Raw flesh and cannibalism?
5. The introduction to Justine and her family, vegetarians, the meal? Justine as the younger daughter, relationship to her parents? Her going to veterinary studies? Her room? The night, the noise, the hazing, mattress out the window, the noisy music, the crowds, sexuality? The further humiliations, the groups, the peer pressure, the leader of the initiation? The group covered in blood? How to reply to authorities? Having to eat the raw rabbit liver? The effect on Justine?
6. Justine, her sister, studying, having gone through the hazing, dominant? The sister and her relationship to their parents?
7. Justine, the rash in the night, going to the doctor, the treatment? The later encounters with food, beginning to eat the raw meat? The transition to humans, her own flesh, her sister’s, Adrien’s? The shock to herself? Conscious and unconscious?
8. The accident, her sister and the blood, trying to make Justine aware?
9. Adrien, friend, in the laboratory, his playing sport, his homosexuality, in his room, discussions with Justine, going to his room, the sexual encounter, his later regrets? Justine in the bed, her biting into Adrien’s leg? The discovery of her sister, her sister and her being responsible? The police, her sisters going to prison, the visit of Justineba?
10. Justine, the effect of this experience, the truth about herself? The meal with her father, his revelation of his chest, about his wife? The family and hereditary conditions?
11. How well did the film work as a drama with the touches of horror, blood and gore? It’s psychological symbolism?
