Raw

Julia Ducournau's Raw is a striking first feature that transcends its genre. This cannibalism at a veterinarian school feature belongs to the body horror genre and, at times, the shadow of David Cronenberg's work, particularly Rabid and Crash, threatens to overwhelm Ducournau's trenchant vision. The performances of Garance Marillier and Ella Rumpf as ambivalent siblings helps lift this film above arty, slasher fare into something more disturbing. Ducournau's emphasis on the hazing rituals of the school, with its intimations of torture and degradation, presents us a rapacious system whose inhabitants respond in kind. Ducournau's heroine is named, like de Sade's, Justine. As in the work of the mad Marquis, the defilement of an innocent is an expression of evil, but also humanity. Because evil would not exist without humanity. Worth checking out for the brave and few. (10/30/17)