![]() ![]() I was hoping that this aspect might at least provide some fodder for easy, morally justifiable murder later on, but that did not quite happen. ![]() What about the gay character who finds that they get turned on by women but only when they may bite chunks out of them in a bloodlust frenzy? (Is it really intending to imply that gay people are meant to be more prone to being excited by danger rather than just interested in people of the same gender per se?) Why is going to parties and smoking joints put on the same 'cutting loose' level as cannibalism? For that matter why are animals equated with cannibalism rather than just being carnivorous? Are we meant to see the way that at the height of their callousness that both the gay roommate and the main character's sister start playing video games to be the ultimate representation of their casual bloodlust? I'm not sure that any of that material really sat right with me, and neither did the way that a veterinary school has military style 'Hell Week' hazing rituals that go far beyond a bit of freshman punishing. Is it that vegetarians are just afraid of going feral if they so much as get a whiff of meat? Is the intense sister bond meant to seem so sexual? (This is where I felt the A Ma Soeur vibes most strongly). It was a little difficult to try and figure out any 'messages' this film had. Never faint or fall asleep in front of a cannibal and certainly do not leave any extraneous body parts hanging around in a tempting manner! I also like that this film has the ultimate form of the "I'm a little busy at the moment, can we talk later?" scene with the older sister being rather up to her elbow in work when the younger one comes to talk out her issues with her!) and then goes a bit Cat People for a while (I guess the parents putting the family dog down for having eaten the finger is another example of being able to destroy an animal without concern compared to being able to do that with an actual child, however necessary or desirable it might be to do so? Although I guess the dog is still there at the end, so maybe the older sister was just teasing the younger one!), before becoming a relationship drama for a spell(?), before a bullying treatise and then a family drama about moral culpability for one's actions and giving in to urges. Tonally it felt a little strange, as it begins quite dramatic, then becomes a kind of black comedy (the 'lady finger' scene. Plus there was a bit of a self harm narrative (however that aspect never really gets better than that early scene of the main character cleaning themselves up in the university bathroom after vomiting only to be given some helpful tips on the best way to induce vomiting by a beaming anorexic presuming that they have found a kindred spirit! I want to know that girl's story, as she seems quite happy with her lifestyle choice!), though the harm element pivots from internal to externally focused pretty quickly. In French film terms it also felt rather in the tradition of films such as Class Trip and A Ma Soeur. Ban this sick car crash sex film!), Cronenbergian body horror in general, and Cat People (the fear of losing onself to sex, though in this case one turns cannibal (or 'canis' and dog-like) rather than feral!). ![]() Well Raw was interesting and at times felt as if it was taking elements of a werewolf film, Crash (getting 'excited' by car crash scenes and eventually even causing them. ![]() I'm not sure I'd go quite so far as to call it "fun", but it's certainly much closer to that than I had been given reason to believe (or maybe there's just something really wrong with me). The execution has much more liveliness and dark humor than I had anticipated, which I would imagine can carry the audience more readily through some of the tougher sequences than more uniformly grim film. I was actually steeled for it to be more gruesome than it was, and the engaging thematic and character work kept it from feeling like the slog from one provocation to the next that equally bloody horror can feel like when those provocations are their sole reason for existing. The final shot is pretty special, too - calibrated to give us just enough new information in the final moments to change and clarify the context and significance of much of what we've seen before without feeling cheap or unearned.I think I only had two walk out of my screening, but that was 1/3 of the audience. The progression of the soundtrack in the former is just a perfect enhancement to what we're seeing without distracting from or overwhelming the scene. Entire finger sequence, which is just masterfully executed from beginning to end, and the scene with star Garance Marillier dancing in front of the mirror. ![]()
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