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Raw Movie Review

Raw is a 2016 French-Belgian horror film directed by Julia Dicournau and starring Garance Marillier. It’s a sickeningly violent, but surprisingly sophisticated movie.

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“And then we had our first kiss.

And I understood…“

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It follows a young vegetarian’s first year at veterinary school when she tastes meat for the first time and develops a craving for flesh. There is a lot to take in here, but let’s first state its themes. I found the movie’s metaphor excellent, I got it early on and it was perfectly executed – never too subtle while still never being too on-the-nose.

Cannibalism here basically stands for the dangers of sexuality, in particular different sexual urges, maybe even fetishes depending on how one looks at it. In particular, the film portrays female sexuality so potently and just how unsupportive the general society still is of women wanting to have and enjoy sex. But above all else, the movie truly gets what it’s like being young and having those urges while being at odds with oneself about whether or not to pursue them. It’s a very deep movie actually.

But it is still a difficult one to sit through owing to all of that excessive violence. There are many truly grotesque scenes here including that one with the vagina eating off a girl’s finger. That scene is not only gross, but also ridiculous, and I did not know what to think about it.

However, even if the scenes are too disgusting and bloody, and they definitely are, the movie still executes this entire cannibal premise really well and actually rather plausibly in many of its scenarios. I particularly loved the family twist toward the end with the final scene being especially powerful and creepy.

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But Raw is otherwise not really that scary, though some scenes are quite intense. That emphasis on violence and gore instead of true scares bothered me, but the script still remains terrific and the performances are very strong. Garance Marillier played Justine superbly as her shift from timid to dangerous felt very plausible and well handled. I also found the debut direction from Julia Dicournau fantastic and I hope we get to see more from her in the near future.

The gore is excessive and disgusting in aptly titled Raw, but this is still a very confidently directed, well acted and superbly scripted horror flick that has much more on its mind than you would expect for a movie about cannibals. The movie stands as a highly sophisticated metaphor for the dangers of sexual urges in young adults and continually looked down upon female sexuality.