A blood born virus that turns the body slowly to marble. A hospital-ward of slowly petrifying patients. Growing up as an immigrant teenage girl with a junkie uncle. Julia Ducournau’s films always go in pretty hard and this is no exception.
There are obvious AIDs parallels. But the film never really gets too bogged down in the illness (despite the astonishing visuals of the increasingly stony afflicted). This is a film about trauma, worry and loss. It’s bound up in the mother-daughter relationship, as the emaciated spectre of uncle Amin leers and chuckles from the sidelines.
I loved it. I’m not totally sure I understand it. But it doesn’t matter. It was a wild roller-coaster of a film. I had no idea at all where it was taking me and enjoyed every moment of it. Ducournau remains firmly on my “watch anything she makes” list.
Bechdel pass, natch.