Raw is an extremely disturbing and jarring film. Having watched it for the second time in our European film class, I was surprised that it imparted upon me the same level of shock it did when I first watched it. It definitely deviated from the usual coming-of-age film through its usage of repulsive themes such as gore and cannibalism, but it employs them so wonderfully liberally as to capture the animalistic nature of growing up within such powerful and influential forces.

The movie presents us with a protagonist who struggles to find her footing in the veterinary school attended by her parents as well as her older sister. She is depicted to struggle with the initiation procedures imposed upon them by the previous batches of students. We are witnesses to the difficulties she encounters in adjusting to her new environment, making the film relatable to students like us who have been cast into the foreignness of college. Different shots depicting the minutiae of student life makes Raw an effective coming-of-age film. We see Justine experience the burden of her academic workload, the overwhelming noise and chaos of a party, the all-consuming need to fit in — all these juxtaposed against her cannibalistic awakening. These experiences are ones we have, in one way or another, have gone through as well, and the film appeals to our adolescent journeys of self-discovery and struggle.

Her animalistic tendencies seem to bring out authenticity from our meek, fidgety protagonist. For instance, in the beginning of the film, she was made to wear a dress by her sister, Alexia, as punishment for her correcting her sister’s work. A shot shows her fumbling around in high heels on the way to her dormitory, the dress draped over her clothes. As the movie progresses, this image of awkwardness and shame is erased and replaced by shots of her wearing the dress confidently at a party where the video of her in the morgue was taken. This shift was brought about by her being acquainted with her desire to eat human flesh. In this way, the movie sort of uses her cannibalism as some sort of a coping mechanism for the many pains that she was experiencing at the time, albeit a strange and horrendous one. However, the way she chooses to deal with these difficulties created more problems for her as she has become insatiable, and her roommate-turned-crush gets in the mix. The film inevitably spirals into madness as all of these things were brewing.

Raw provides us with a fresh and unusual take on a genre we frequently encounter. Its peculiar use of horror themes in conjunction with painfully relatable moments of vulnerability and anxiety makes the film an interesting and unforgettable watch. In a way, it concretizes the emotional and mental marks and scratches we incur in the process of growing up and coming to terms with who we really are. The elements of gore and horror that the film utilizes is only supplementary to the internal turmoils being presented to us on screen.

Raw was a movie that had involved a lot of blood and gruesome shots that were difficult to watch. For me, I believe the movie exerted efforts to place emphasis on the sense of gore into the movie. The best instance for this is when Justine wakes up with Adrien. Justine tries to please him however she finds out that Adrien’s leg has been devoured by Alexis, the sister of Justine. The shot of what is left of Adrien’s leg does not go uncensored. 

I believe the camera shots of the film like to focus on details that are not exactly the most comfortable. One case would be the bikini wax scene of Justine being made by her sister. Furthermore, the same case can be said when Justine slowly eats the finger of her sister just right after, which I will go back to later on. Another scene would be how Justine sneaks in the refrigerator after eating shawarma with Adrien. She eats a piece of raw seafood that sparks this behavior. This is also the case where Justine fights with Alexis after the video went viral for the whole school to see an intoxicated Justine being teased by her sister with a dead human body. The fight involved a lot of scratching, exaggerated biting, and deep wounds. 

In terms of the movie’s plot, it does cover the holes. One thing that shocked me at first is when Justine ate the finger of her sister, Alexis was pissed. However, I honestly expected a more shocking response or one that exhibits panic. But then, we would find out that her sister also exhibits the same behavior. In fact, we would also find out at the end of the movie, the ending scene implies that the behavior is inherited from their mother, wherein their father shows Justine his scars. This explains the reason why the mother only cooks vegetables for the family, as meat triggers this type of behavior. Furthermore, the movie does not fail in conveying to its audience that their mother was also part of the same fraternity. I believe implicit endings are very common in European films, one of which is L’avventura, where the ending show its characters not saying anything to each other. In the case of Raw, words were mentioned however it ends with details that convey sufficient closure. 

The title of the movie seems to be linked to the plot as well. This is because Raw somehow could be related to animalistic instincts and tendencies. Justine and Alexis exhibited this in terms of diet and behavior. The same could also be said in the love scene where Justine becomes aroused and had the urge to bite Adrien. It is worth noting that Justine and Adrien are not a couple, which shows also how it is linked to the title of the movie.

For me, the movie does not fall short in relaying to its audience as a gore film. I believe it can be as bloody as the likes of the Saw movies, where explicit blood, wounds, and injury are very much exposed to the audience. I am not really a fan of Gore movies as I am afraid of blood and the movie did a great job in showing scenes that actually made me uncomfortable.

Disturbing in every possible way, the storytelling in the film Raw from the direction of Julia Ducournau is one of the most clever I have seen yet in the screen. The brutality of the scenes, with blood, violence and tragedy found in every frame, gives off the impression that the film only meant to scare, and to terrify the viewer. Yes, I found myself scared and most definitely terrified. But the scenes were also meant to trigger depth. The scenes uniquely and creatively tell a coming-of-age story, one that has not been told yet in the cinematic sphere making it truly one of a kind.

The storyboard was structured brilliantly—first, introducing the character of the vegetarian Justine in her most innocent self before eventually moving on to the complex and disturbing scenes. At the beginning, her apprehensions to her surroundings manifested through her mannerisms and littleness acts (reserved, soft-spoken) were a stark contrast to what she would eventually be by the end of the film. By establishing this version of Justine empowers the later scenes.

She was introduced as a typical normal girl with a regular family, beginning her first semester of school: sounding like any other ordinary film. But this is not just any other film, as things get messy when she later discover new things about herself, things she only discovered in the unusual setting of the veterinary school. The tension in the irony of her character and setting is the enabler of her late discoveries. She is a lifelong vegetarian studying at a veterinary school, learning about the anatomy of animals. She has surrounded herself with an environment that appears to be in conflict with her ideals and her perceived personality/persona and lifestyle that she grew up with.

Being in this conflict with her environment, Justine finally gave in to her urges. Later on, we see how her urges got bigger and bigger, that she started losing control. I feel as if the material of the film is contextualizing the concept of desire and lust taking over the character of Justine where her late discovery of the flesh magnified the level of desire. Being so different from her initially perceived self, I think she felt more herself, freer. By the end of the film, the walls that she had set at the beginning—soft, quiet, shy—were all broken down, possibly quite literally (with a lot of scenes having broken bones, smashed flesh).

Now that I think about it: the scenes are definitely necessary, even those are insanely graphic and brutal—the finger, the lip—to prove its points. Perhaps, the film is not something that can easily be rewatched. I figured, one is already enough for the film to execute its objective which is to open the eyes of the viewer, both literally (with the chills and goosebumps) and figuratively—there are still things yet to be seen in the world by our small selves. For Justine, her self-discovery was indeed very explicit, vivid, even violent. But the ending truly hit me the most: her dad opened his shirt, uncovering scars on his chest, as he tells her she will eventually learn a solution.

Without a doubt, Raw was the most disturbing movie of the class thus far. From people just outright yelling to people audibly gasping and looking away from the screen, it was certainly something that will remain in my mind for quite some time. And yet a few days after watching Raw, the more I realize that the film was more than just a movie meant to disturb or terrify. In fact, now that I think about it, Raw may also be a coming-of-age movie of sorts, although a bloody and violent one.

The main storyline of the film can be summed up in a simple sentence – and IMDB honestly nails it: “An innocent teenager, studying to be a vet, develops a craving for human flesh.” That’s the basic premise of the film, with the rest of it mainly concerning itself with how she reacts to this newfound craving and how her personality changes, most especially how the lead character handles her relationship with her sister and her attraction to her roommate.

I mentioned that the film almost might be a coming-of-age movie, and the reason for that is that after the main character begins her cravings, she begins to act much more liberated. Instead of being soft-spoken and reserved, she is more outgoing and impulsive. Once she wants something, she does anything to satisfy her cravings and it’s almost as if the movie is commentary on how one giving in too much to their urges is too much. 

In fact, one of the more disturbing scenes in the film that actually contains no violence is a scene where the lead performs a dance in front of the mirror. She puts lipstick on, dances provocatively, and even outright kisses her mirror multiple times, all while a French pop song with a disorienting techno background with lyrics involving extreme sexual undertones plays. It goes to show that as much as her cravings for actual human flesh have come to the surface, so to have the other kind of cravings come to her life. Another is when she looks longingly at her roommate playing soccer. From the way she stares at him and her nose begins to bleed, it is almost uncertain if she is looking at him in the lens of attraction or the lens of hunger, and the dizzy and zig-zag camera work helps make this scene feel uncomfortable to watch.

It is this duality in violence and coming of age themes that makes Raw a unique movie to think about. While I definitely think that the violence and gore alone makes it almost a certainty that I do not want to see the film again, it is discussion of the film and thinking about its themes after that makes it stand out even more in my mind as something to remember, and part of why the film is so memorable is this said violence.

The violence of Raw is easily its biggest talking point. It is violent, it is brutal, to the point where I read that the film supposedly made people at Cannes throw up and go to the bathroom. Without mincing words, especially considering the reactions of the class, this is something that I absolutely get. A finger is cut off, part of a lip is bitten off, and full-on depictions of dead animals are shown… and yet the violence of Raw almost feels necessary to show the events of the film. Is it graphic? Yes. Is it brutal? Absolutely. And yet it never feels like blood and gore for the sake of blood and gore. For lack of a better word, the violence in Raw is tasteful and fitting to the film’s tone. It is this almost necessary graphic violence that really drives the film’s themes home.

At the end of it all, Raw is an unforgettable film. It is terrifying in its violence, thought-provoking in its themes, and all-in-all, this is certainly one of the more uncompromising and graphic views on growing up and coming of age.

Julia Ducournau’s 2016 film, Raw, beautifully and disturbingly captures the emergence of a young teenage girl, Justine, as she balances her first year in college with her new-found love for human flesh. Unsurprisingly, Ducournau’s portrayal of cannibalism is extremely grotesque, with dozens of shots of dismembering, tearing-off, and biting at. I, myself, someone who is fond of horror films, couldn’t handle the gore and had to look away several times. Though this theme has been portrayed diversely in the cinematic film, Raw is unique. The Hannibal series and film portray the main character as a meticulous cannibal who plays smart, while The Santa Clarita Diet series puts a light spin on the whole cannibalism subject. Raw is unsettling in that its portrayal of cannibalism was irrational and animalistic, as implicated by all the dead animals in the veterinary school. It explores indulgences, not just for raw, human meat, but also for sex, alcohol, and other vices. It was a spin on addiction and how the more she tries to deny and abstain from her desire for meat, the more ravenous and voracious she becomes.

No one would think that a film on cannibalism would go hand-in-hand with the themes of coming-of-age, sexuality, and empowerment, but again, Raw impresses the audience and critics by doing just so. You can easily compare how different post-carnivorous Justine is to when she had just entered school. She was a vegetarian and a virgin. Timid, afraid. But as the movie progresses, we see how she starts to explore sexuality and discover who she is. She became more certain and controlled of her actions. Beneath its surface, Raw successfully tackles a young woman realizing who she is and what she wants, albeit, the answer to these are rather extreme and grotesque, like well… cannibalism and raw, human flesh. The director herself, Julia Ducournau, is a celebration of female power. For her directoral debut, she breaks boundaries and shatters glass ceiling by directing a horror film, an incredible one at that—a feat considering how male-dominated the field has become.

The plot of the movie itself started of very confusing. I was confused as to how all of this happened to her suddenly. Not to mention, how weird her school is. What kind of veterinary school initiates their freshmen by dousing them in cow blood and forcing them to eat raw rabbit kidney? This question is never really answered throughout the film, but we slowly start to realize what is happening to Justine, especially when we see her sister do the same things. Towards the end, we are sure now, this is genetic, and the parents knew this would happen. The audience is then left with many ethical and methodological questions, why would the parents let their daughters go to the same school knowing that this would be the outcome? Should the parents have let them know about this inevitable future of theirs beforehand, or let them figure out a solution as they go along? Nonetheless, the film ends on a hopeful note, Justine still has a lot to learn about herself, but she’ll figure it out and be saved.