Introduction To Raw (film)

Raw (French: Grave) is a 2016 French-Belgian horror drama film written and directed by Julia Ducournau,[5][6][7][8] and starring Garance Marillier.

The film is a coming of age horror film that deals with a young vegetarian's first year at veterinarian school when she tastes meat for the first time and develops a craving for flesh.

The film premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and was released in France on 15 March 2017 to critical acclaim.

Lifelong vegetarian Justine begins her first semester at veterinary school, the same one her older sister is currently attending and where her parents met. Her first night, she meets her gay roommate Adrien and is forced to partake in a hazing ritual, welcoming the new students. They are brought to a party, where Justine feels uncomfortable until she runs into her older sister Alexia. Alexia shows Justine old class photos of students bathed in blood, including one with their parents. The next morning, the new class is splattered with blood during their class photo and then are lined up and forced to eat raw rabbit's kidneys. Justine refuses, saying she is a vegetarian and even asking Alexia to back her up. However Alexia denies she's a vegetarian and after Justine watches Alexia eat a kidney, she reluctantly eats one as well. Later that night, Justine discovers a strong, itchy rash all over her body. She goes to the doctor the next day, who diagnoses her with food poisoning and gives her a cream for the rash.

The next day, Justine begins having cravings for meat, stealing a hamburger from the cafeteria, which she later throws out, ashamed of herself. Still craving meat, she and Adrien take a late night trip to a gas station so no one will see Justine eating meat. On their way there, Justine observes a car crash. Unsatisfied with her trip to the gas station, Justine ends up eating raw chicken in the morning. After she talks with her teacher about cheating, Justine throws up a bundle of hair she ate. That night, she drinks with Alexia and asks if she can sleep at her place. She finds the same cream in Alexia's cabinet that the doctor gave Justine. Alexia gives her a bikini wax, during which some of the wax gets stuck on Justine's skin and Alexia proceeds to try to cut the wax off with sharp scissors. Justine kicks her away and Alexia accidentally cuts her own finger off and faints. Justine immediately calls an ambulance. As she waits, she is overwhelmed with her craving for meat, and eats the finger which Alexia sees when she wakes up. At the hospital she tries to throw it up but fails. The missing finger is blamed on Quicky, Alexia's dog, who is put down.

The next morning, Alexia takes Justine to a deserted road, where she jumps in front of a car, which crashes into a tree. Alexia starts eating one of the passengers, as Justine tries to stop her. She walks back to school alone. Despite this, Justine's craving for human meat grows and she starts lusting after Adrien. She finds Alexia playing video games with him and gets jealous. That night, Justine has a nightmare where something attacks her in her sleep. Once she recovers, she arrives at a party, where paint is thrown at her as part of another hazing ritual and she is forced to kiss a boy, during which she bites part of his lip off. Later as she is washing herself, one of her teeth falls out and she eats it. Justine confides in Adrien and they end up having sex, during which Justine tries to bite Adrien several times, finally biting her own arm as she climaxes. They fight the next day.

Justine gets extremely intoxicated at a party, when she meets Alexia who takes her to the morgue. The next morning, everyone in the school stares at Justine, some avoiding her. After a lecture, Adrien shows her a video of a drunken Justine crawling on the floor like an animal trying to take bites out of the arm of a corpse which Alexia pulls out of reach. An angry Justine attacks Alexia in the quad and the two fight. Alexia bites part of Justine's face off and they both bite each other's arms, finally taken comfort in eating one another only to be pulled apart by two coeds. Later, Alexia bandages Justine's wound. The morning after, the hazing week ends and Justine awakens to find Adrien dead in his bed, with most of his right leg eaten away. She thinks she killed him in her sleep at first but finds a bloody ski pole on the floor next to the bed and a stab wound in his back. She gets out of the bed to find a bloody and mostly catatonic Alexia slumped in the kitchen holding a video game controller. Justine takes the ski pole and points at Alexia's head but then decides not to kill Alexia. Justine takes Alexia to the shower to get her cleaned up.

Alexia is put into prison where Justine and her parents visit her. Despite everything the two sisters appear to be on good terms as Justine presses the scar on her cheek from the bite Alexia gave her to the glass and Alexia kisses it.

At home Justine's father tells her that what happened is neither her fault nor Alexia's and explains that when he first met Justine's mother he couldn't understand why she didn't want to be with him until the first time they kissed. He then opens his shirt to show scars and chunks of his flesh missing and tells Justine that he is sure she will be able to find a solution.