Raw is released in the UK as a Limited Edition Blu-ray by Second Sight on April 26th 2021. Special features:
The Girl Can’t Help It: a new interview with Actor Garance Marillier
Making Ends Meat: a new interview with Producer Jean des Forets
New audio commentary by film critic Alexandra West
Audio Commentary with Julia Ducournau and film critic Emma Westwood
In the Name of Raw: an interview with Director Julia Ducournau
A Family Affair: a new video essay by film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Raw À Votre Goût –featurette with Julia Ducournau & film critic Emma Westwood
Quick Bites with Julia Ducournau and film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Genre Matters Panel Discussion
Australian Premiere Introduction
Australian Premiere Q&A with Julia Ducournau and Kier-La Janisse
Alternative opening, deleted scenes, trailers
Rigid slipcase
A perfect-bound booklet with new essays by Hannah Woodhead and Emma Westwood plus an interview with Julia Ducournau by Lou Thomas
Three collectors’ art cards
Meanwhile, here is our previous coverage of Raw:
‘What are you hungry for?’
Raw is a 2016 French/Belgian horror film about a young woman, studying to be a vet, develops a craving for human flesh.
Written and directed by Julia Ducournau, the movie stars Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf and Rabah Nait Oufella.
Ducaurnau has said her approach to the film is heavily influenced by Canadian auteur David Cronenberg (The Brood; Videodrome; Naked Lunch).
As reported by The Guardian, a screening of the film at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2016 resulted in paramedics being called. “An ambulance had to be called to the scene as the film became too much for a couple patrons,” Ryan Werner, who is handling the film’s marketing, said in a statement.
Everyone in Justine’s family is a vet. And a vegetarian. At sixteen, she’s a brilliant and promising student. When she starts at veterinary school, she enters a decadent, merciless and dangerously seductive world.
During the first week of hazing rituals, desperate to fit in whatever the cost, she strays from her family principles when she eats raw meat for the first time. Justine will soon face the terrible and unexpected consequences of her actions when her true self begins to emerge…
Blu-ray release:
Scream Factory will release Raw on Blu-ray in the USA and Canada on March 23, 2021.
Review:
Written and directed by Julia Ducournau, Raw is a drama/teen body horror. Student and vegetarian, Justine (Garance Marillier) develops a taste for human flesh after undergoing an initiation ceremony at her first year in veterinary school. The class is splattered with blood and forced to eat rabbit kidneys, which Justine initially refuses. Also attending the school is her older sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf) who persuades her to join in.
Justine’s cravings extend beyond raw meat to a human finger when Alexia has an unlikely accident involving a bikini wax and a pair of scissors, and Justine starts gnawing on the digit like a chicken wing. The sisters’ animalistic nature is revealed when a car crashes on a deserted road and Justine has to stop Alexia from eating one of the passengers.
Yet as her own urges intensify, she starts lusting after her gay friend and roommate, Adrien (Rabah Nait Oufella), eventually losing her virginity to him. With her desire for sex conflicting with a hunger for flesh, she attempts to bite him several times before chewing on her own arm. Rather than freaking out, Adrien is strangely accepting of this abnormal compulsion.
Likewise, when Justine gets drunk at a party and ends up in the morgue, she can’t remember anything until Adrien shows her a video on his phone. Justine is horrified to see herself crawling around like an animal while Alexia dangles a corpse’s arm in front of her as though it’s bait.
The sisters’ fight in front of everyone and Alexia bites a chunk of Justine’s face off before they gnaw on each other’s limbs, almost gaining satisfaction in the repulsive act. The strange behaviour reaches a peak when Justine finds Adrien dead in his bed with half of his leg eaten away and a stab wound in his back. Alexia is covered in his blood, seemingly in a state of shock. Despite Justine’s grief, she decides not to take revenge and cleans her sister up in the shower.
Although Alexia ends up in prison, the girls have a mutual understanding and love for one another, which is nice to see. Back home, Justine’s father (Laurent Lucas) tells her that it isn’t their fault and makes a shocking revelation when he opens his shirt to reveal a mutilated torso. Their mother has the same ‘condition’ and he insists that Justine will find a solution. Ironically, Lucas also starred in the similarly themed French body horror, In My Skin (2002).
Justine’s animalistic urges and the internal struggle as she ascends into womanhood are reminiscent of the renowned Ginger Snaps (2000), and director Julia Ducournau has spoken about the film’s bold expression of female sexuality many times. In fact, Raw breaks a lot of gender stereotypes, from the sisters playing video games to dropping their pants and peeing over the floor for laughs.
The film is worthy of its critical acclaim and has a far more psychological depth than your average cannibal fest, despite facing controversy for its graphic content and reports of people fainting and vomiting at theatrical showings. Raw does a great job of getting under your skin in more ways than one.
Rae Louise, MOVIES & MANIA
Other reviews:
“Although the film is rooted in arthouse film territory, and is particularly inspired by the films of David Cronenberg and David Lynch, Raw turns out to be its own wild animal. It has rightly earned the buzz that has surrounded the picture, and Ducourneau’s uncompromising vision is one to watch.” The Playlist
“Raw’s exploration of the onscreen potential of cannibalism feels fresh. It’s not a brutal practice here so much as a pathetic and sad one, something that inspires as much loathing in the devourer as the devoured. Justine doesn’t have the privilege of being undead when she sinks her teeth into another human; she’s watching her own descent into animalism just as helplessly as we are.” Vulture
“As an allegory of the discovery of identity, shifting sexuality, the sexual power of women, and the first steps into adulthood, it’s a unique and rare film, that will hopefully (and deservedly) find an audience beyond genre film fans.” Screen Anarchy
“Ducournau’s control of her material is masterful … The script is at once fiercely original and replete with a rich awareness of the genre, smoothly referencing films from Carrie to Ginger Snaps and The Craft. Marillier is excellent, playing Justine with a subtlety and assurance that grounds the film, even at its most extreme.” Sight & Sound
“Raw is a deliciously fevered stew of nightmare fuel that hangs together with a breezily confident sense of superior craft. Genre-led distribs will be slavering for a taste, while crossover to a slightly more mainstream crowd may be possible, provided they have strong stomachs.” Variety
“Everyone but vegetarians will feast their eyes on Raw (Grave), a cleverly written, impressive made and incredibly gory tale of one young woman’s awakening to the pleasures of the flesh — in all senses of the term. Marking the feature debut of French director Julia Ducournau, who leads a terrific young cast into a maelstrom of blood, guts and unfettered sexual awakening…” The Hollywood Reporter
” …while it’s clearly the stuff of clean-living nightmares, Raw is not some silly splatter fest. Ducournau directs with remarkable poise and assurance, impressively grounding Raw‘s weirder, wilder moments. This is not so much scary movie as unflinchingly intimate coming-of-age indie.” London Metro
“Raw’s cannibal awakening is paired wittily with a very dark college self-discovery journey in which Justine, a teacher’s pet, experiments with drinking and sex as she navigates her sometimes supportive and sometimes competitive relationship with the aggressive Alexia … Raw is filled with surreally Cronenberg-esque peeks at vet training within the brutalist walls of the campus building, from dog dissections to a horse running on a treadmill.” BuzzFeed
“Ruben Impens’s photography, featuring a string of eerily spacious wide shots, makes the most of the imposingly odd brutalist architecture of the vets’ college and the make-up, by Laura Ozier and SFX specialist Olivier Afonso, is at times quite hair-raisingly juicy. All in all, a classily savorous fright tartare.” Screen Daily
” …there is enough to admire here to satisfy conventional appetites, not least Marillier’s tightly controlled portrayal of Justine’s metamorphosis from herbivorous virgin to into horny mega-carnivore […] Yet what makes Raw engrossing and indeed out-grossing, is its literally visceral power to realise its primary ambition. It consistently horrifies.” London Evening Standard
Cast and characters:
Garance Marillier … Justine
Ella Rumpf … Alexia
Rabah Nait Oufella … Adrien
Laurent Lucas … Le père
Joana Preiss … La mère
Bouli Lanners … Le routier
Marion Vernoux … L’Infirmière
Thomas Mustin … Chef du BDE
Marouan Iddoub … Bizut réfectoire
Jean-Louis Sbille … Professeur évaluations
Benjamin Boutboul … Vétéran cagoulé
Virgil Leclaire … Bizut couloir / Foot / Fin Coryphée
Anna Solomin … Vétérane couloir
Sophie Breyer … Bizute réfectoire
Danel Utegenova … Bizute toilettes
Alternate title:
Grave
Release:
Raw opened theatrically via Focus World in select US cities on March 10, 2017.
