Sundance 2017 Interview: RAW Writer/Director Julia Ducournau Discusses Her Powerfully Provocative Exploration of the Human Body

Over the last several months, writer/director Julia Ducournau’s Raw has been finding a lot of success on the festival circuit, and recently, her feature film debut played as part of the Spotlight program at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

While in Park City, Daily Dead was thrilled for the opportunity to sit down and speak with Ducournau in-depth about her approach to Raw (which rocked me when I saw it last year during Fantastic Fest). The filmmaker discussed how her cinematic story was her own way of exploring the trivialities of the human body, the often tumultuous nature of sibling rivalry, and more.

Keep an eye out for Raw in select theaters on March 10th, and be sure to look for more from the 2017 Sundance Film Festival right here on Daily Dead.

Congratulations on Raw, Julia. We've seen coming-of-age tales before, but I thought your approach was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Can you discuss what inspired your story and approach?

Julia Ducournau: For me, the key to that is working around bodies, especially when your characters, your two main characters, are young women. I really did not want to portray their bodies as being glamorous or sexualized or anything. Sexuality is part of the process of growing up and coming-of-age stuff, but the way I wanted to shoot this was not sexualized—I really did not want that. I did not want smoke machines, I did not want clean underwear, I didn't want powder on the body or anything. I really wanted to portray this triviality in women's bodies, the fact that they also burp, puke, pee, or whatever, because I think that almost never exists on the screen.

When you watch movies or TV shows, that is something that only men do, and I’ve never understood that very well. Also, the important thing with the triviality of bodies is that it ends to universality. Basically, looking at the first level of the body with every reaction you can have—rashes, nausea, and stuff like that—even if we're talking about female characters, I knew that it was going to touch everyone, because it happens to everyone.

For example, in the waxing scene, which is the scene that I like the most, because it's a scene that is prominently feminine for what it says, what it portrays. The bikini wax is something that a lot of women do, and very few men do. However, I did not want this to be some kind of a fun experience, because it's way more serious than this. It's serious because one, it's pain that we don't really know why we inflict on ourselves. At one point, her older sister says, "Beauty is pain," and that is the emptiest statement you could have about that situation. “Beauty is pain” doesn't mean anything, actually.

For me, it was a big question mark. Why do we do this to ourselves? I wanted to show this absurdity, and that is the daily life of a lot of women, including me, by the way. I always like to think outside of the box and afterwards, I wanted everyone to be able to identify with what she was going through at that moment—not only women. The way I shot it was that I really wanted to be very close to the skin. Why? Because when you show hair pulling on skin, everyone knows what it feels like, you don't need to have had the bikini wax in your life to understand that it's incredibly painful. And this triviality would hopefully make everyone in the audience feel for her at that moment, and feel what she's feeling at that moment.

Then, it's no longer a feminine scene, it's a scene for everyone, that talks to everyone. It's no longer a niche moment, it becomes a universal thing. The thing that interested me the most for Raw was the triviality of bodies, because with bodies you don't have races, you don't have genders, you don't have sexualities, either. You have bodies that all ache, that take pleasure, and that applies to everyone.

You talked a little bit about it, but there does seem to be this societal pressure that comes down harder on women, whether it comes from how we look, how we work, how we deal with the opposite sex, how we deal with pretty much every facet of our lives, where we are scrutinized in a way that I don't think a lot of men really ever have to contend with. Was that something in the back of your mind when you were making this? I don’t know if this same story would have been nearly as impactful had a male director been at the helm.

Julia Ducournau: Well, it would have been a completely different perspective, but I do think that sexism unfortunately applies to both genders in a way as well. Even if I think that the level of discrimination is clearly different and clearly at the disadvantage of women, I do also think that the idea of being a man, what it is to be a man, and that you have to be brave and things like that, also comes with a huge pressure attached, and I don’t think this is fair, either. People have to understand that feminism is a fight that concerns everyone.

And I really considered the prospect of having a male character, and what dynamic would that give my story, or how would it change it? That was actually a very interesting exercise to do in my head. But I thought that it was an opportunity for me to portray a different inspiration for women, and young women especially. Because I do think that the sexuality, especially when it's the birth of a sexuality in a character, is very often portrayed as something that is completely psychological, that is very in the mind. It seems to always revolve around shame, it's always about fear, it's always about, "Did I choose the right guy? What if I made a mistake?"

That’s all very psychological, it's all in the head. Sexuality for everyone is a matter of bodies, it's a matter of carnality, and everyone wants to feel that. Everyone wants to have pleasure and I really wanted to portray a young girl who goes through the birth of her sexuality without shame, without regret, and with something that is completely animalistic, but in a healthy way. It's good to show people that at least you have the option to also be that person.

The core of Raw revolves around these two siblings, Justine and Alex, and I thought the way you portrayed their relationship felt wholly authentic. Can you discuss creating that dynamic between those characters, and also working with Garance [Marillier] and Ella [Rumpf]?

Julia Ducournau: The sibling relationship is incredibly cinematographic and I think it's the most interesting relationship to shoot. Why? Because you go from love to hate to love again to hate again, and as a director, you don't need to explain what's happening in between those shifts. Everyone knows what this bond is like, even if you're a single child, you know that the bond that siblings have doesn't need any explanation. You can really go from love to hate in two seconds, and that dynamic felt cinematographic because Raw is an incredibly visual story.

The thing with the girls, with Garance and Ella, is that I got lucky because Garance is a younger child in her family, and Ella is an older child in her family, which is completely coincidental. I really wanted them to feel empathy, to bond very much. It was not easy, because Ella doesn't live in France, she lived in Germany at the time. They didn't see each other very much, but I wanted them to Skype call each other a lot before we started shooting. The chemistry was already there the first time they met each other, and afterwards, the fact that they were those types of siblings in real life, it added a lot to their characters.

I also really wanted Alexia, the older sister, to act like the body of her younger sister belongs to her, too, and I wanted Ella to touch Garance roughly, to not be careful with her, because to Alex, her sister Justine is like her pair of jeans. Alex will take her and put her on the bed or throw her away recklessly. I really wanted her to be almost vampirical with her, even though Raw is not a vampire story at all. I told her, "Her body belongs to you, so you act like it belongs to you. You don't ask for any permission or anything." And throughout the story, Garance’s character starts being resistant to this, and you can feel that she moves away from her sister, and this is when the distance between the two bodies is created. Again, it all came down to working with the bodies.

*Above photo courtesy of the Sundance Institute.

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In case you missed it, check out Heather's Fantastic Fest review of Raw.

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