Movie of the Month: Julia Ducournau’s Raw (2016) & Bodies Performing Excess
By Katie Kern
I saw Julia Ducournau’s Raw (2016) a few years ago. As a spectator, I felt the most visceral body sensations I’ve ever experienced while watching a movie, to the point where I thought I was going to throw up. I usually steer away from horror because even in my 20s, I still shriek at the sight of blood and monsters on the big screen. When they do show up, I usually slyly put my head down and graze my hand above my forehead, creating a cap to shelter me from the screen. A few months ago, I came across Linda Williams’s "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess," where she writes about the functionality of excess and why the body of the spectator might experience sensations while watching a body genre film. Since then, I’ve realized that some of the body genre films I once resented, like Raw, might be the most important to watch.
Raw follows Justine, the protagonist, a vegetarian who’s in school to become a veterinarian. Once she tries meat, she becomes obsessed and discovers she enjoys human flesh. In a narrative sense, in Raw, Justine embodies “out-of-control ecstasy” most horrifically through cannibalism. Williams says, “It is the female body in the grips of an out-of-control ecstasy that has offered the most sensational sight” (4). The film offers this sensational sight by incorporating the most horrific ideas of sex, violence, and emotion, all embodied by the “sexually saturated female body.” I also believe it is a film that uses extreme portrayals of bodily excess (cannibalism) to oscillate between all three body genres.
Williams says that in the three body genres—porn, horror, and melodrama—it is normally the female body that operates as the primary manifestation of pleasure, fear, and pain. Raw doesn’t only incorporate horror; it is a film that uses extreme portrayals of bodily excess (cannibalism) to oscillate between all three body genres.
These manifestations of pleasure, violence, and pain that Justine experiences are all embodied quite literally through the human body (cannibalism). At one point, Justine orgasms while partaking in a form of autocannibalism during sex with her best friend. It is through the act of biting her own arm that she finally climaxes. The film challenges traditional notions of desire, sexuality, pleasure, and identity by utilizing the orgasm (ecstasy shown by the porn genre) and violence (bodily excess of the horror genre). Additionally, Williams writes about the presence of sexual fluids of the “sexually saturated female body” on the screen that accompany body genres. The presence of sexual fluids is exaggerated in Raw, with the excessive portrayal of blood (horror genre ecstasy) on the screen, and also the tears as Justine cries out of guilt (melodramatic ecstasy).
At the conclusion of the essay, Williams astutely observes, "Genres thrive, after all, on the persistence of the problems they address, but genres thrive also in their ability to recast the nature of these problems" (12). Raw epitomizes this duality by reconceptualizing explicit sex, violence, and emotion, thereby challenging the traditional confines of these body genres. The film’s narrative, marked by its deliberate excess, seamlessly integrates these three genres, fostering what Williams would likely term spectatorial fluidity. This dynamic synthesis not only cultivates a multifaceted and immersive viewing experience but also underscores the transformative power and critical importance of films that transcend conventional boundaries to evoke profound physical and emotional responses.
Sources:
Williams, Linda. “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess.” Film Quarterly, vol. 44, no. 4,
1991, pp. 2–13. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1212758. Accessed 6 July 2024
Raw. Dir. Julia Ducournau. Wild Bunch, 2017.