Julia Ducournau followed her breakthrough film Raw – coming up in about 100 titles – with this confrontational project that surprisingly won the Palm d’Or at Cannes. I wonder how it would be regarded and what the audience would end up being with that award, because it contains an incredible amount of violence and sexuality for a film that was released in the U.S. with an ‘R’ rating, and it’s an impossible movie to accurately describe. Many go with the joke of “it’s about a woman impregnated by a car,” but that doesn’t describe the journey that involves gender politics, parental questions, a need for acceptance, general attitudes towards behavior that’s seen as ‘deviant’ or ‘abnormal’. These are all questions the film asks, but it isn’t interested in coming to conclusions. It reminds me of Fight Club where people are cut off physically and emotionally, and along comes something that takes them through pain but in the end they better understand what it means to be alive. David Cronenberg is the king of Body Horror, and his approach is clinical. This tackles similar ground from a more instinctual angle.
Leave A Comment