A girl walks along the side of a road. A car drives down the the road. The girl disappears from view. The girl runs in front of the car. The car crashes against a tree and the girl walks towards the front seats of the car. The red colored tite card appears in silence. The movie starts with a jolt in the form of a car crash. A young woman appears for a moment. A car shows up. The woman is gone. Then as the sound of the car gets nearer she jumps out and causes the vehicle to swerve and crash. The sound of strings get more intense as she approaches the front doors of the car….and then silence. The title card comes in in bright bloody red.
A young woman walks down a long road, seemingly fading into the trees around her. A cut reveals a car coming from the other side of the road. However, when the camera cuts back, the girl is now missing. As the sound of the car approaches the frame, the girl runs out from the trees, jolting both the driver and the audience. The car swerves to try and avoid her but ends up crashing against a tree – the previously alive members of the car now rendered pieces of flesh. The girl lies for a few moments before getting up and walking towards the car and opening up a front door; her movement is accompanied by harsh strings which burst to a crescendo before dissipating into silence as the blood red title card bursts onto screen.
Justine (Garance Marillier) asks for food and declines any meat. Her visage is covered by the reflection of the flesh she’s refused. Justine(Garance Marillier) realizes some meat has gotten into her food and informs her mother (Joana Preiss) and father(Laurent Lucas). Justine(Garance Marillie) and her father(Laurent Lucas) exchange a smile as her mother berates the restaurant for the slip-up. The family is vegetarian and meat is inexcusable. Justine (Garance Marillier) looks out, bracing herself for her future college experience. She notices her mother(Joana Preiss) and father(Laurent Lucas) lovinly regard one another. Justine(Garance Marillier) puts her hands between her legs and starts to rub them in anticipation? Justine’s dog comes into the frame and disrupts her sense of zen. Justine (Garance Marillier) is left alone in the parking lot of her school with her sister nowhere in site. This moment of violence is juxtaposed by a scene of innocence. A young woman, Justine, gets food with her parents at a restaurant. She tries to avoid getting any meat on her plate but despite making her intentions known, flesh still makes its way into her mouth. She informs her mother who berates the restaurant over causing her vegetarian family grief, before then departing with her family to be dropped off for her first year at veterinary school. While they drive along, she notices passions between her parents, passions which engender an idyllic state of peace. This moment of comfort is interrupted by her dog which leaps into the frame, marking the end of her “childhood” and the start of her coming-of-age journey as she’s dropped off at her new school, forced to make her way without parental help anymore.
The film cuts to another young woman, Justine (Garance Marillier) purchasing food and the burst of violence which came earlier seemingly bears no relation. Justine is framed against a glass counter; her image has an assortment of meats projected against it – an image of flesh rendered from an animal juxtaposed against an image of flesh moving in the form of a human. The food worker asks Justine if she wants protein to which Justine responds she doesn’t want meat. However, as she sits down with her mother (Joana Preiss) and father (Laurent Lucas) to eat, she notices something off with her food: the presence of animal flesh. Quickly, she informs her mother of the issue who promptly gets up to ream the kitchen staff over their mistake: her family is vegetarian and the meat should have never been there. Justine and her father exchange smiles with one another; this situation is one that is familiar to them and they’re both used to Justine’s mother’s militant reactions.
After the debacle, the family unit makes their way to drop Justine off at veterinary school for the start of her first semester. As the drive unfolds, Justine notices the warmth her parents have for one another and feels the rays of sunshine brush over her. She places her hands between her legs and starts rubbing them, but her idyllic moment is interrupted by her dog who starts to lick her face – this time a live animal present in the family unit. Her parents inform her of the location of the grocery store, the morgue, and the medicinal area: a factory of flesh where bodies are rendered as food, as cadavers, and as patients to be treated.
The duo drops Justine off under the assumption that her sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf), who also attends the school as a sophomore, will pick her up despite commenting that Alexia’s tendencies make her hard to control. Consequently, after her parents leave, Justine is made to walk to school herself, her sister nowhere in sight, the first of many hurdles to come.
Adrien (Rabah Nait Oufella) introduces himself to Justine (Garance Maraillier) as her roomate. He explains he’s queer while holding a green ski-pole. Justine (Garance Marillier) and Adrien’s (Rabah Nait Oufella) room is ransacked by masked “terrorists” who break and destroy everything while forcing the two of them out. The first years are forced to crawl in their undergarments – a process of humiliation……which is then revealed to be nothing more than hazing. After completing the first part of the initiation, the first years are invited to a rave. Justine (Garance Marillier) walks through the maze of carnal pleasures. She notices Adrien (Rabah Nait Oufella) making out with another guy. Justine (Garance Marillier) runs into Alexia (Ella Rumpf) at the party. Her sister didn’t have time to pick her up but is here at a rave. Burts of light reveal that Justine (Garance Marillier) and Alexia’s path goes through rooms filled with animal monstrosities including a mock-up of a spider-sheep. Alexia (Ella Rumpf) shows Justine (Garance Marillier) a picture of their parents after having done their own initiation. Justine (Garance Marillier) tries to get some rest after spending the entire night partying, but her efforts to get some peace and quiet are thwarted when she hears Adrien getting ready to have sex. Justine’s first day proves to be unadulterated chaos. Instead of getting a woman as a roommate, she gets a queer man. Then her possessions and room are broken into and ransacked by masked hoodlums who force her and the other first years to engage in humiliating trials before then revealing that this is just part of a hazing initiation. Upon finishing the first task, the students are invited to a rave. The torrent of pleasures is too much for Justine to handle given her disposition and she stumbles to find a foothold. It’s at this point she runs into her sister, Alexia, who offers her a respite from the rave in the form of a vision of the future. Alexia shows Justine a picture of their parents who also finished the same initiation Justine is going through now – a sign of approval.
Unfortunately, this is the smallest of Justine’s problems. As night falls, she’s woken up by a man, Adrien(Rabah Nait Oufella) who intrudes her room holding a ski pole. She asks him what he’s doing and he informs her that they’re roommates. Given that she requested another woman for a roommate, she’s understandably upset by the presence of a man, but Adrien immediately attempts to assuage her concerns by admitting that he’s queer, offering his sexuality as an explanation for why the college would place them together. According to the system, woman and queer man are interchangeable, or so he suggests.
However, before Justine can process this new revelation, her dorm room is broken into by a wild horde of masked bandits who force all the first-year students out into the hallway after throwing their possessions out of the window. Like the car crash that inaugurates the film, this burst of violence is random and seemingly lacks purpose. The fresh batch of students are forced to strip down and crawl in humiliating fashion by the masked group, who then reveal that the absurd theatrics are just part of a hazing ritual; the violence is thus rendered coherent by social practice. Upon finishing the first part of the ritual, the group is invited to a rave, which cinematographer Ruben Impens gloriously captures in a one take that follows the innocent Justine as she’s thrust into a realm of excessive enjoyment.
Vibrant blues and reds color the walls, disorienting a Justine who desperately seeks footing in the sweaty, chaotic, throng of bodies. Every extra on the screen moves and dances with such passion that the rave scene gains a vitality of its own, moving and proceeding in such a way as to swallow Justine. First, she sees Adrien and moves towards him but backs off after seeing him in passionate throws with another man. Eventually as she traverses the labyrinth of pleasure, she runs into her Alexia and embraces her. Finally, the sisters are united and Alexia excitedly takes her little sister to another location to show her something.
The students tranquilize a horse to get it ready for a procedure. The horse’s eyes show a vitality that persists in spite of its incapacitated nature. Justine (Garance Marillier) showcases a similiar vitality behind her eyes, as she stands shocked at the nature of the procedure and the gaze of the horse upon her. The powerful beast lies fully immobile and gazes onwards. Justine’s first lesson has her witnessing a horse being tranquilized for a procedure. The majestic beast capable of immense strength is immediately rendered immobile. However, it’s vitality persists and is rendered in its gaze, a gaze which Justine seems to share as she stares at the creature frozen in fear herself.
Classes begin and the students witness a surgery procedure done on a horse. Ordinarily so energetic and powerful, the creature is reduced to a passive state via tranquilizers. However, the vitality driving the horse is still very much present in its eyes, which gaze directly at the screen. Justine’s shocked expression at the situation strikes a parallel – both gazes reveal an animalistic drive waiting to be released. Consequently, the green background takes on a feeling of domesticated vitality. Green is both “alive” and “in control”.
Justine (Garance Marillier) notices a splotch of red liquid drip onto her white coat as she takes her class picture. The splotch turns into a barrage, as a torrent of of blood falls onto Justine (Garance Marillier) and her class. Justine (Garance Marillier) and her classmates’ faces are coevered in blood. The class photo is taken. This group isn’t traitorous. Adrien (Rabah Nait Oufella) eats his rabbit kidney as Justine (Garance Marillier) protests eating the same due to her vegetarian diet. Alexia (Ella Rumpf) eats the rabbit kidney instead of supporting her sister like their mother would have. Alexia(Ella Rumpf) feeds Justine (Garance Marillier) the rabbit kidney. Adrien (Rabah Nait Oufella) helps Justine (Garance Marillier) as she recoils from the impact of ingesting meat. Justine’s class experiences first a baptism by blood followed by sacrament in the form of rabbit kidneys as proof of their commitment to the initiation. While Justine accepts the former, she refuses the latter on the grounds of her vegetarian beliefs. She calls out to her sister for help in the same way she called her mother at the start of the film. However, unlike their mother, Alexia has no interest in helping Justine regulate herself and force feeds her sister the piece of flesh. The experience both disorients and traumatizes Justine, who is forced to rely on Adrien to stay on her feet afterwards.
In comparison, the color red, while also being “alive”, is far from control and expands excessively. As Justine stands with the other first years for their photo, she notices a drop of red fall on her bright white coat before suddenly being engulfed in gallons of blood along with her classmates. Now her years picture has been finished; so far, she is not a traitor. She too is marked and the red blood her parents and sister were marked by in the past.
She and Adrian make their way to a line serving “something” all conscripts have to consume. When Justine gets to the front of the line, she figures out that the “something” is nothing other than a raw rabbit kidney. In protest, Juliet argues she’s a vegetarian and should not have to engage in the deed, going so far as to call Alexia to confirm their family’s dietary restrictions. Her outburst makes sense given her orientation towards the non-human: she believes non-human animals have rights and dispositions that would render harm done to them as ethically problematic as harm done to humans. If she eats rabbit flesh, what’s to stop her from eating human flesh?
However, Alexia is not Justine’s mother; instead of helping Justine out, she instead eats a piece of the rabbit kidney and then feeds an emotionally devastated Justine another piece – baptism by meat. With her strict vegetarian lifestyle and ethical orientation now cracked, Justine’s sense of self and appetite are unbound – the barrier to a whole realm of actions are now open as her ethical consistency allows her to logically engage in more obscene interactions with flesh.
Raw is thus, in both a metaphorical and literal sense, an exploration of the limits of the body and the way violence to it is rendered coherent or excessive. Flesh is what holds the metaphorical trappings of the film together: animals and humans become the same through their capacity to be eaten and be sexualized. Practices towards flesh are rendered acceptable or unacceptable, not based on harm, but based on coherence with social norms.
At a visual level this is established in the colors themselves – both red and green represent an orientation towards vitality. The difference lies in obscenity – green is domesticated and red is excessive. It’s no coincidence that greens coincide with vegetables and red coincides with meat. As a vegetarian, Justine is virginal, innocent, and child-like. The first time the viewer sees her is dressed in a white unicorn t-shirt while being protected by her parents.
Then, as soon as Justine gets to college, she’s forced to grow up and deal with a world that tells her to enjoy at the cost of everything else. There are no parents left to demarcate and keep her insulated. In an environment filled with alcohol, sexual relations, ritualistic proceedings, and meat, it’s easy to see how someone could lose their grasp and succumb to the injunction to enjoy. Her cannibalistic desires are not merely excuse for gory violence but rather represent her longing to find herself. They come up at the same time her sexual desires awaken. Both desires related to the flesh arise in an environment where flesh is ubiquitous: college students looking to fornicate, animals waiting to be treated, cadavers lying in a morgue. Thus, Justine is forced to navigate the corporeal matrix of bodies in as many manners as she can, to get a better grasp on herself.
In this way, Raw rides the fine line between coming-of-age story about a young woman trying to find her place in world at large and David Cronenberg-esque body-horror that seeks to locate the line where animal instinct ends and human behavior begins. As a result, the story is able to both shock the audience with playful gore, but also play off those macabre moments in comedic fashion. A “seven minutes in heaven” session, which would be normally be an anxiety fueled place of hilarious sexual blunder, becomes darkly comedic when amped up with the possibility of cannibalism. An already awful situation just gets amped up to the next level which reveals something about the nature of the activity itself.
Through constantly juxtaposing both accepted and non-accepted forms of relationality to flesh, director and script-writer Julia Ducournau is able to demonstrate how the condemnation against something as seemingly excessive as cannibalism, is nothing more than an arbitrary construct. How is it bloodier than eating meat from an animal? Why is ethically more invasive than recording people’s downfalls and posting them online? What trait makes the practice more egregious than the hazing committed by the school’s seniors? These questions gain traction because Ducournau sequences the movie by first exposing a “prohibited” relationship to the flesh, demonstrating a counterpoint to that relationship that’s socially accepted, and then using then having the first relationship bleed into the guise of the second. Because she focuses on the body in such careful and clinical fashion, even the obscene relationships it brings about are rendered cognizable and comparable to more commonplace relationships. These connections are made all the more apparent because non-human animal bodies are present in abundance, providing a variety of counterpoints to the relations being shown.
Furthermore, the distinctive manner in which Ducournau directs the bodies of her actors highlights a corporeal malleability. In scenes with extras, everyone moves organically with explosions of difference happening in the tapestry of the frame. This ability to create points of difference extends to even the facial movements of the actors. In particular, Garance Marillierenlivens Justine in the subtle ways she intensifies her gazes, shifts her eyebrows, and re-centers her body weight transforming from dainty waif to predator. The corporeal possibilities inherent in the body become “actualized” which in turn gives the films themes a heftier flavor.
By quite literally showing the ways people mark one another in their actions via cannibalism itself, Raw serves as a powerful reminder of the way our bodies are constantly open to and in proximity of other bodies, rendering both avenues for enjoyment and suffering based on the orientation we approach them. Ducournau’s debut feature majestically weaves through the contours of the body to reveal the contingencies of our relationships, both to ourselves and our notion of humanity proper. And it somehow manages to do all this while remaining a charming and cognizable story that anyone, sans the extremely squeamish, can watch and enjoy.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Raw is an underappreciated horror gem of the 2010’s that deserves more recognition not only for its fresh and innovative take on women’s ability to relate in and to the world, but also for its perfect use of cannibalism as both horror and tool for metaphor. It’s a film that shocks, but then asks the viewer what exactly was shocking , forcing the viewer to confront the way they’ve normalized structured of discipline and violence.
Rating
10/10
Grade
S+
Go to Page 2for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Note: This review contains spoilers regarding the first 30 minutes of the film as opposed to the site’s usual benchmark of 10-20 minutes. The same effort towards sustaining the intrigue and momentum of the film, especially in its second and third acts, is maintained in this review, and all plot details revealed are just meant to be a springboard to discuss the scope of the work in better detail. Nothing discussed should undermine the “best” portions of the film or the many mysteries that keep the story engaging.
Waves churn in the sea.The waves slowly dissolve and become….… a screen of pixels…which end up “becoming” a baseball game. From left to right: Masami(Hitomi Sato) and Tomoko (Yûko Takeuchi) have the baseball game playing in the background. Masami(Hitomi Sato) tells Tomoko (Yûko Takeuchi) about the cursed videotape. The clock ticks ominously. The happy mood between Masami(Hitomi Sato) and Tomoko (Yûko Takeuchi) dissipates as the truth comes out. Masami(Hitomi Sato) and Tomoko (Yûko Takeuchi) answer the phone downstairs and are relieved upon hearing Tomoko’s parents. The television turns on behind Tomoko ( Yûko Takeuchi) as if by its own volition. Tomoko ( Yûko Takeuchi) stares at the screen in fear. Tomoko’s ( Yûko Takeuchi) face freezes as the negative image takes hold of the frame. The domain of technology is shown to be home to forces beyond human comprehension as the sea’s waters become the pixels which comprise the television’s image, looming ominously in the background while Tomoko and Masami talk gleefully to one another. Far from being alone, the girl’s are seen by a force of nature, an emissary of the sea. When Masami mentions the tale of the cursed VHS tape, it’s as this presence is named. Somehow, there’s a connection. Tomoko mentions she’s watched the tape and the sound of a phone call confirms that something is wrong. Far from being a rumor, the threat of a specter becomes a genuine possibility. When Masami leaves Tomoko under the assumption that everything is fine, the threat manifests as real, taking Tomoko by surprise and snapping a photograph of her, a negative image in contrast to the film’s positive image.
Ambient rumbles and the sounds of the churning waves mix as the camera pans over a tumultuous sea. The uncanny waters become grainy before dissolving into the static dots of a television set; thus, nature and technology merge in unholy unison. A pathway is formed. Static transforms the sea into a baseball game.
It’s revealed that two young girls, Tomoko (Yuko Takeuchi) and Masami (Hitomi Sato), have the game on in the background, as a source of background noise to a conversation they’re having. The latter mentions an urban rumor regarding a cursed VHS tape which supposedly kills its viewer after exactly 7 days. Apparently, after watching the tape, the viewer receives a phone call confirming their doom and then they succumb a week later as consequence. Tomoko displays an unease and asks where Masami heard about the rumor before revealing that she’s seen the aforementioned tape. Suddenly, the clock on the wall becomes a menacing presence, a death knell counting down towards Tomoko’s inevitable end. Terror takes its hold and the jovial mood in the room dissipates as demise makes itself known. It’s at this point Tomoko breaks the tension by claiming she’s joking and the girls laugh once again.
However, this moment of relief is ripped out from under them. The ominous ringing of a phone pierces the soundscape and casts a spell of doom, silencing the girls’ laughter. Both girls go downstairs towards the phone which beckons them forward. Masami picks it up and expresses relief upon hearing Tomoko’s parents on the other side. She hands the phone to her friend and goes upstairs, assured that the crisis is averted.
Unfortunately, this reprieve is also revealed to be temporary; despite being clearly off before, the television set near the phone turns on. The baseball game from earlier which marked a peaceful change from the sea now casts an ominous electric blue light. The relationship between sea and television has now been reversed: the television itself imposes presence of the blue, tumultuous waves come alive in the form of a similar colored light.
Tomoko attempts to turn the television off, but the technological apparatus initially refuses her commands. Finally, she succeeds in her endeavor and turns around assured that the issue over. But as she gets a drink ready, she hears a presence making scratching noises behind her. She turns her head to confront the presence and her face breaks into absolute terror. The frame freezes and the colors invert; a negative image takes the place of a positive image as if the unseen presence has taken a picture of Tomoko’s reaction to its abject aura – a snapshot taken from and by the void.
Thus, the film allows for a film to be born from within its structure – the start of a series of negative images that serve as an undercurrent to the positive appearance which will dominate the majority of the film. Far from being just a diegetic element, the spectral nature of the rumored VHS tape permeates into the non-diegetic layer and suggests that Ring itself shares the same uncanny characteristics as the cursed video that serves as the heart of its narrative proper.
A young girl is intervied by Reiko, captured in a positive image by the camera. Reiko(Nanako Matsushima) asks about the cursed video tape. The group of schoolgirls talk about the urban rumor regarding the VHS tape. In contrast to the negative image image of Tomoko, a positive image of a young girl fills the frame. This time the camera is controlled by a human force, Reiko, who is reporting on the urban tale of the cursed VHS tape. Though the news segment she’s filming appears to be some small news, the introduction alerts us that this otherwise innocuous sounding gossip is anything but.
This dichotomy between film and the reality it frames and captures is doubled down in the next scene which follows our protagonist Reiko (Nanako Matsushima), a news reporter, as she interviews young schoolgirls about the rumors swirling around the cursed tape. In contrast to Tomoko’s spectral encounter whereby reality gave way to negative photographic capture, Reiko’s news report transforms reality into positive photographic capture. In her case, she films to get footage for a news report which calls to question what the negative image and the cursed VHS tape are being/have been produced for. A matrix is made present through the juxtapositions of images caught between the planes of the living and the otherworld.
Yōichi(Rikiya Ōtaka) sits facing the television, waiting for Reiko to come back home. Yōichi(Rikiya Ōtaka) helps zip up Reiko’s (Nanako Matsushima) dress in preparation for his cousin’s funeral. His questions about why his cousin died are answered in unsatisfying fashion. Reiko leaves Yōichi with his grandfather. Yōichi’s cousin is revealed to be Tomoko ( Yûko Takeuchi), the young woman who saw the tape at the start of the film. Yōichi(Rikiya Ōtaka) sees what appears to be Tomoko running up the stairs. The lighting switches from dark to light momentarily as a young girl, presumably Tomoko, runs up the stairs. Yōichi(Rikiya Ōtaka) walks up the stairs which are dark once again. Yōichi is led to Tomoko’s room, the place where the sea became the television. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) finds Yōichi(Rikiya Ōtaka) in the room and takes him out before anything can transpire. Televisions litter the mise-en-scène, becoming gradually more unsettling as the film continues. When we see Yōichi sitting innocuously by one while waiting for his mother, Reiko, the unit seems benign. However, it ultimately becomes an malevolent force as Yōichi comes face to face with the television which first marked the encounter with the sea qua uncanny. Furthermore, he is led to this encounter by none other than the victim of the tape’s curse, his cousin, Tomoko. The re-appearance of the young woman suggests that the business with the tape is far from being over.
Reiko returns to her abode post interview and is greeted by her son,Yōichi (Rikiya Ōtaka), who helps her get ready for a funeral. While zipping up her dress, Yōichi asks Reiko why his cousin, Tomo-chan, died and if kids die in general – serious issues to deal with, especially when asked by a child. His mother answers both questions matter-of-factly, that is to say in an unsatisfying matter, and brushes off the gravity of his existential distress, telling him instead to keep such thoughts quieter around her sister, Tomo-chan’s mother, as to not distress her. Angst about death is pushed underground in favor of keeping an appearance of peace.
The mother-son pair arrive at Reiko’s sister’s place where Reiko’s father (Katsumi Muramatsu) takes Yōichi aside to give Reiko time to help with the funeral arrangements. It’s at this point Reiko’s journey and the film’s opening intertwine as it’s revealed that Tomo-chan is none other than Tomoko, the first on-screen victim of the cursed VHS tape. Yōichi stares at her picture on the wall longingly. It’s clear that her absence is troubling him.
While he stands at the foot of darkly lit stairs, he suddenly sees a young girl’s feet running up them, the darkness momentarily replaced by light. If Tomoko’s absence brings darkness to his life, then this change in lighting suggests he feels her presence. Is this a psychic vision, manifestation of his loss, or a mixture of both? No answer is given.
Yōichi follows this potential “Tomoko” up the stairs before coming face to face with the television in her bedroom, her apparition now missing. Paranoia builds as the horrors of the opening rear their head more viciously here – a TV, the presence of something supernatural, and someone left all alone. Thankfully, Reiko, who had been looking for Yōichi , finds him alone in the room and whisks him out promptly; the confrontation with the abyss is averted momentarily.
Outside of the house, hosts of schoolgirls stand looking both solemn and uncomfortable. Reiko notices them as she’s getting ready to leave and goes to question them. She naturally gets the girls to open up and explain their concerns without fear of judgement. Like the schoolgirls she interviewed earlier, these girls mention a cursed video tape and confirm that Tomoko and friends of her not only saw the tape while on a trip to Izu but died on the same day in similarly incomprehensible circumstances. Once again, the tape comes up as the source of everything. Now caught at the intersection between her investigative pursuits and family tragedy, Reiko’s dance with the abyss has come. The tape and her are on a collision course with one another.
Footage of two of the victims, who were both discovered dead in a car with no sign of foul play. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) and her co-worker analyze the footage. The victim’s face is frozen in abject terror. As Reiko analyzes footage of other apparent curse victims, the viewer is drawn into the process of analyzing the minute details of the film. The faces of the victims look frozen as if caught at their most scared.
Drawn by the enigma presented by the situation, Reiko goes to work and begins investigating the deaths of Tomoko’s friends, analyzing the footage documenting the discovery of two of their deaths. One of their faces, that of a young girl, is frozen in abject terror as if scared beyond comprehensible limits. The moment is demarcated and framed, captured in a moment to be investigated, replayed, and reinterpreted. Photography captures the present and transforms into a discretized unit of time, capable of being reactivated with new perspectives.
An gust with no apparent source helps Reiko notice a note. Reiko’s (Nanako Matsushima) sister (Kiriko Shimizu) comes into the room unnoticed and struggles to describe how Tomoko died. Tomoko’s (Yûko Takeuichi) body lays crumpled in her closet. Tomoko’s ( Yûko Takeuichi) face is contorted into absolute terror like her classmates who died. Tomoko’s face matches the face of the other victims of the tape calling to question what exactly could be so terrifying that people would die with an expression of utter terror on their face. Reiko is headed on the course to find out as the force responsible for these deaths seems to edge her towards finding it, pointing out Tomoko’s note in an effort to lure the reporter.
While the mechanics of how the students died remains a mystery to Reiko, the confirmation that the entire group died around the same time as Tomoko drives her towards investigating her family connection more stringently. She goes to her sister’s house and investigates Tomoko’s room. Initially unable to notice anything, she discovers a folded piece of paper as it’s brought to her attention by an unseen presence, a small wind with seemingly no in-room source which moves the note. Written inside is a date along with the name of a photo processing store. It seems that Tomoko’s’ vacation pictures from Izu have yet to be picked up – a new clue for Reiko to follow.
Just as Reiko turns to leave the room, her sister shows up from behind, expressing a demonstrable trauma in the shattered look on her face. The latter looks at Tomoko’s closet and finds herself unable to describe the manner in which she found her daughter’s corpse. Instead, the film shows us this horrific discovery flashback. The closet door opens and Tomoko’s body is shown crumpled in a corner, her face frozen in the same terrifying manner as her similarly deceased friend. Both girls look scared to death, their faces trapped in absolute horror.
The photos of Tomoko and her friends appear normal. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) looks at the photographs and seems relieved. By a certain date, the images become distorted. The students’ faces are now warped and indiscernible. The plot thickens as the photographs of Tomoko and her friends look markedly different before and after a certain date. Their faces go from joyous and jovial to distorted and indiscernible, as though something is effacing the camera’s ability to directly capture their images. It’s like an unseen filter clouds the camera’s eyes – another spectral technological event.
Later at the photography store, Reiko discovers that the photographs of Tomoko and her friends have a marked difference before and after a date in time. While their early photos in Izu are marked with smiling faces and cheery dispositions, the latter photos are marked by distortion and disturbances. Once again, technology has been rendered uncanny from a previously domestic state; an unseen force returns and inhabits the technology which formerly worked as tool for the living and turns it into a tool for the spectral. Happy faces become distorted, but we know they’ll end up breaking into a blood-chilling terror that will remain forevermore etched onto the faces of the victims. But the cause of this metaphysical transformation is still to be discovered and Reiko is determined to get to the bottom of it.
Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) sends Yōichi to school, choosing, once again, to not answer his questions. Instead, she chooses to go to Izu to investigate the cursed tape. A visual marker with the time and date along with a strange aural cue come up on the screen as she makes this choice, marking the occasion. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) is unable to find anything in the cabin the students rented sans a notebook that guests can write in. As she flips the pages, she comes upon a drawing of a child and their parents with a statement indicating that a child’s traits are a result of their parents’ traits. Reiko scans the tapes that customers can borrow. An umarked VHS tape takes control of the frame, giving it a grainy filter similar to the pixels of a television screen. Like the gust of wind from earlier, a presence is calling Reiko. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) puts the television on. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) prepares herself for the tape to start. Reiko’s confrontation with the tape is marked by increasing intrusions, first in the form of a textual and auditory marker signifying the date and then by the cursed tape itself which applies a grainy filter to the image. Far from just being an object in the plot, the tape seems to exude control over non-diegetic elements and choices in the story.
The next day comes and Reiko prepares to trek to Izu in order to find more pertinent information. While she cooks food for Yōichi to warm up and eat later at night during her absence, he comes up to her and informs her that Tomoko watched the curse tape. Obviously upset that her son has knowledge of such matters, she asks him where he learned about such a fact before then beseeching him to not mention the issue at school. Once again, Reiko skirts the uncomfortable topic broached by her son in favor of idyllic appearances that taper over the abyss.
It’s at this point that the date and day of the week- Monday, September 13th – comes onto the screen accompanied by a disconcerting, yet melancholic set of sounds. Like the spectral snapshot taken of Tomoko, this non-diegetic feature becomes open to diegetic possibilities. If a specter took a “photo” of Tomoko, who’s to say it’s not documenting Reiko until she meets a similar fate? Viewed in this way, the text marks the starting date of Reiko’s confrontation with constitutive void hiding at the heart of the tape. This audio-visual interruption dissipates and Reiko departs towards the inn Tomoko and the other students stayed in.
Inside the inn, her attempts at investigation come up nil. There appears to be no hints or clues towards foul play of any sorts. Opposed to any clues, Reiko only manages to find a notebook filled with quotes and drawings from previous guests. A sketch by a child catches her attention. It depicts a obese mother, father, and child figure. Written near the drawing is the child’s declaration that they are fat because their mother and father are fat. Thus, the qualities of the child inhere from the qualities of the parent; if something is found in the former, it is due to something from the latter. Seemingly benign, this observation will come to play a pivotal role in deciphering the assemblage of terrors lying in wait.
At a surface level, films are the children of creator-parents that give birth to them and disseminate them into the world. Choices like framing, editing, sound design, camera movements, and the like are decisions that play a decisive role in determining the genetic make-up of a film and what it “grows” up to be. Given this, Reiko’s upcoming confrontation with the VHS tape will bring to question the nature of its “parent” and the tape qua child’s place in the world.
While questioning the front desk about Tomoko and her friends, Reiko notices an unmarked VHS tape in the rental stack of tapes available for those staying in the inns. The tape calls out to Reiko, directly transforming the film. Its presence forces a close-up and the camera’s filter becomes grainy and textured as if unable to fully contain the presence manifesting in the moment. The pull is enough and Reiko rents it. She takes it back to her cabin. The time has come. Reiko puts the tape in and lets it play.
A view of the clouds from a well. A woman(Masako) brushes her hair in the mirror. A girl(Rie Inō) with hair covering her face The woman(Masako) looks over at the girl. The word “Eruption” erupts through the frame, manifesting in a variety of shapes and sizes. Men crawl and rumble in disorienting fashion. A man with a towel over his head points towards our left. “Sada” appears in an eye which stares at the screen. A well appears. The contents of the cursed video tape prove to offer very little immediate meaning. The montage seems to lack any throughline, but the grainy, ambiguous presentation of each scenario creates a palpable unease.
The tape and the film become one as the viewer and Reiko view the cursed footage from the same proximity, that of minimal distance. A view from a well cuts to a mirror’s reflection of a woman brushing hair. Another mirrored reflection, this time from framed on the right of the screen instead of the left, comes in momentarily, depicting a young woman with hair covering her face. The initial woman’s reflection stares at the other woman before text ruptures the screen. The word “eruption” appears all over. Blurred people crawl along a hillock while the ambient whispers present in the soundscape erupt into what sounds like guttural chanting emanating from an abyss. A man with a towel on his head points towards the left of the frame as sharp noises jolts the auditory precession before an eerie silence takes hold. A blinking eye gazes at the viewer. Letters seemingly appear in the pupil. Finally, a well appears on the screen and the camera lingers as if waiting for a presence. But nothing comes.
Reiko(Nanako Matsushima) notices a specter’s(Rie Inō) reflection on the television. Reiko(Nanako Matsushima) picks up the phone and hears nothing. The clock ticks, announcing her future time of death. The television sits even as Reiko leaves, marking the site of her confrontation with the world beyond. Its presence as a conduit between the worlds is confirmed one and for all. Reiko’s confrontation with the tape, marked by both a visit by a specter along with the dreaded call at the end of it all, confirms that the curse of the tape is real. Far from a tool of humanity, the television set has rendered a site for the immemorial to take hold again, as forces from beyond make their presence felt on the world of the living. The television set sits as though representative of an sinister agency that far exceeds its boxy frame.
Suddenly, the film cuts back from the tape to Reiko watching it, granting the viewer a distance, a mercy it does not extend to Reiko who spots in her reflection against the television screen a specter staring back her. A haunted tape featuring reflections played on a television which becomes a mirror depicting the tapes viewer and creator. The TV set becomes the site where the immemorial clashes with the contemporary – technology serves as a conduit for both the human and non-human and allows the planes to interact with one another.
Right on cue, the phone rings and the doom sets in. Reiko gets no answer on the call, but she as well as the viewer know that her date has been set. Seven days exactly till she meets the same end as her deceased niece. Now the battle has come to head and the textual interlude marking the date – Monday the 13th – and the clock marking the time – a little past 7:05 P.M.- becomes a time of death cast exactly 7 days in the future. Understandably frightened by the encounter, Reiko runs out of the room, but the camera lingers and stays focused on the television, reminding the viewer of who’s currently winning the battle. With the clock ticking against her in the most literal of senses, Reiko is forced to trek back home and call upon the help of her estranged ex-husband, Ryūji (Hiroyuki Sanada), to get to the bottom of the mystery before her untimely demise.
Given its set-up, it’s no wonder that director Hideo Nakata’s Ring legacy has endured since its inception; the film injects the terror of horror as genre into the structure of the film itself, creating a loop wherein the diegetic and non-diegetic elements intertwine with one another, informing each other. At one level the viewer is watching a film about characters watching a film (of sorts) which the viewer also gets to watch. The viewer is then made to analyze the structural choices of this film within the film, as Reiko and Ryūji do minute analyses behind the creator’s choices to figure out how to unravel. Simultaneously, the structure of Ring proper- it’s editing choices, freeze frames, textual interludes describing the day, and the like – gives the film a feeling of returning on itself. It’s as if a film is being made from within the film about a film – a circuit whereby the spectral and the technological intertwine with one another in a constantly shifting dance of meaning. The same questions and methods of analyses used on the cursed footage leaks over to the film proper, begging the question of where the VHS tape ends and where the film begins.
Ring constantly seeks to probe this sense of discomfort via its demonstration of how same channels humans use to communicate with one another can give to an unhuman force. Phones which help connect family members across geographical boundaries now connect the spectral and corporeal, rendering the boundaries between the human and nonhuman bare. Televisions which provide entertainment and a respite from the drudgery of the day became channels by which the other world can reach out and curse the living. Technology becomes a marker of the trace between humanity and its attempt at demarcating itself against. No one is safe…not even the viewer who is subject to the same “cursed” footage that victims and Reiko have seen. It becomes clear that if such a phenomenon were to occur in our world, we’d be just as doomed, just as trapped as Reiko. We watched the tape too. Thus, spectral intrusion is demonstrated to be as insidious as it is terrifying. It can’t be taken seriously until it’s too late.
Not since Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, a film about a serial killer who kills women and photographs their contorted dying expressions, has a film so brilliantly captured the perversity inherent in photography and the way it captures the subject within its frame. Despite utilizing a different sub-genre as vantage point, supernatural and cosmic over slasher, Ring manages to traverse into the same uncanny territories Peeping Tom does in revealing the terrors inherent within humanity. The films’ shared focus on capturing dying expressions is a result of their investigative focuses: the liminal point at which humanity renders unto itself unhumanity.
This is why Ring is and will always continue to remain eerie, if not outright terrifying, long after the age of VHS tapes. It preys on the terrors lying at the heart of the horror genre – the peripheries and vestiges of that uncanny which we feel in our mythos and the world around us but can’t even pinpoint. It takes the act of viewing horror media itself as the basis of its investigation, forcing the viewer into an intimate encounter with the subject matter. Nakata’s film is demonstration that fear is a result not of loid noises or shocking violence but of making the viewer investigate the difference between reality and the abyss that seems to follow it.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
While Ring‘s legacy is more so remembered today for its impact in making J-Horror a global phenomenon both in terms of exports and westernized remakes, it goes without saying that the film itself a bona fide horror classic of the highest caliber. Hideo Nakata’s disturbing investigation into the ways technology renders the world from beyond to investigate with the world we inhabit is not only eerie in the way it renders some of our most used tools (televisions, phones) conduits for the supernatural but also reaffirms the power of the horror film and its ability to force encounters with the uncanny. By focusing the film on the power of horror film itself and taking those ideas to the extreme, Nakata is able to deeply unsettle and render even the medium the movie is playing on disturbing. It’s no wonder then that so many people find it hard to watch their television after watching this film. It’s hard to take the screen as trustworthy ever again.
Rating
10/10
Grade
S+
Go to Page 2for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Text appears on the screen, presumably written by the movie’s in-universe director, indicating to us that the movie to follow, the story of the disappearance of a painter named Johan (Max von Sydow) , is informed by both a journal formerly owned by him and a personal verbal account of the events leading up to the same by his wife, Alma (Liv Ullmann). As this information is presented, stage direction can be heard in the background. Is this the director giving instructions for the movie that’s about to start? A voice yell, “Quiet.”
The expository text gives way to the introduction title sequence, during which stage directions can be heard from the background. In this way, the “real” world and the movie world bleed into each other, revealing the duplicity of the barrier between our conscious and unconscious worlds. As if to confirm the point, upon saying “Action”, the screen fades from “Svensk Filmindustri” to
As “Action!” is called the screen dissolves to a small cottage where Alma resides. She comes out of the abode to answer some of the “director’s” questions. She talks directly at the camera presumably to the director, but her direct approach feels more like she’s addressing the audience. Her eyes, however, can rarely meet our gaze for more than a few seconds. As she talks about her missing husband, it’s clear to us that not only does Alma not know what has happened but that whatever she has witnessed is something that escapes her explanatory capabilities. Unable to continue conversing she stares down and the camera dissolves to black once more, bringing us to the world of the “real” narrative.
These first six minutes are a light serving of what’s to come. First, this introduction, both the text and Alma’s testimony, reveal the ending of the story. We know Johan is missing and is not coming back and we know that Alma will make it to the end, ready for a new life with her soon to be born child. By giving us this information, we can focus on the why and how of the upcoming surreal imagery as opposed to the what which primes us to be more involved in deciphering the hallucinatory events culminating in his disappearance. This also has the double effect of pushing us towards Alma’s corner because we start the movie with her and know we’ll end with her, a move that becomes quite important as it gives us an anchor to hold onto as wade through the torrents of meaning.
Second, the inclusion of stage directions during the title sequence demonstrates the constantly fluctuating border between art and reality. The initial text message is written by the “real” director of the movie. We know the real director is Ingmar, but the second level of an in-world director taking charge of the movie adds another level of intrigue. This is exacerbated by the nature of the movie’s sources- testimony. Testimony which we know is in fact fiction. It’s no wonder then why the nature of the surreal sequences provokes so much confusion as the nature of what’s happening is up to interpretation- what reality does it belong to?
Third, the shift from an “objective” textual account of the overall story to the “documentary” like interview with Alma to the story “proper” demonstrates the way perspectives bleed into one another on top of imbuing the movie with a misty dreamlike quality. At a structural level Hour of the Wolf is a movie within a movie, the former of which contains both interview footage and what we’d normally consider a movie. It’s told from an “objective” perspective which seeks to synthesize two experiences of a person – one from a diary and another from word of mouth, both equally subjective. What does subjectivity mean if we can encapsulate the experience of another in such a way as to inhabit it? Likewise, what does objectivity mean if our experience of ourselves is one that slips outside of our understanding? Thus, the stage is set for the story to take place.
The couple makes their way to the deserted island.Bergman has the camera focus on the tip of the boat for an inordinately long time to emphasize the length of the trip .Johan (Max von Sydow) spends a long while removing his belongings from the boat indicating this outing to the island is one meant to last. As Johan (Max von Sydow) and Alma (Liv Ullmann) walk up the rocky shore, they almost seem like they disappear. It’s almost as if the island is consuming them. Johan (Max von Sydow) and Alma (Liv Ullmann) make their trek to the supposedly deserted island. The camera lingers both on the front of the boat as it travels and on the couple as they remove their items from the same. This is done to emphasize the length of the journey and the distance from civilization the couple are trying to reach. As the couple makes their way through the rocky shore, they almost seem to disappear, almost as if consumed by the island itself, a sign of things to come.
We start with the couple making their maritime trek to a supposedly isolated island. The trip is long and the camera emphasizes its length by focusing on the bow of the boat. This is a long way from civilization. As the couple makes their way to shore, it becomes evident that they’ve come here for the long haul. Johan’s general dislike of people has led the couple to seek out a place to be alone.
However, it isn’t long before the two of them realize they’re not the only inhabitants on the island. As the couple’s path crosses with other people, their idyllic island life begins to come under siege. One hand, the other islanders exacerbate Johan’s anxieties, constantly probing into his status as an artist and relationship with art, leading him to become more aloof and distant. Despite being apparent fans/patrons of his work, these “others” spend most of their time mocking Johan and the supposed value of art in the world. On the other hand, Alma’s concerns and attempts to understand something about Johan’s mental state led her to places of utter desperation as she struggles to maintain stability between her husband and herself. She constantly strives to make a genuine connection with Johan in spite of his apparent apathy. Meanwhile, Johan finds himself besieged on all sides and is unable to find any respite, most of all during the hours between midnight and dawn, for it is during this “hour of the wolf” where nightmares are born, people die, and babies are born – a liminal place where anything and everything can happen.
In this way, the narrative can be read as a demented ménage à trois depicting an artist trying to run away from any investigation or prodding (outside of what he desires) being chased by his partner who wants nothing more than to understand him at his most intimate who are both being harangued by a mob that seeks to explicate the couple’s motivations and decisions. Both parties, Alma and the others, want to gain an understanding of Johan. The former wants to do it through intimacy, carving out a path for mutual understanding through love. The latter wants to do it through domination, carving out an interpretation of Johan according to their own ideas of what he ought to be. Johan stands in the middle, caught in a whirlpool of torment. Every gambit on Alma’s part designed to save him is met by an equally brutalizing action by the part of the other islanders designed to condemn him – a tug of war for the direction of his soul. Every question any party asks is met by a surreal answer that feels more like a question than the original inquisition. Issues of identity bleed into questions of art bubbling into the movie’s primary question: is it possible for a person to truly ever know another person – art or otherwise?
Johan (Max von Sydow) holds Alma (Liv Ullmann) next to the tree near their house. The scene is serene and calm. Shadows cast both a literal and figurative doubt over Lindhorst (Georg Rydeberg). The scene becomes bathed in a near blinding light as Johan (Max von Sydow) encounters an unwanted “intruder”. Cinematographer Sven Nykvist is given full carte blanche to explore a variety of different lighting styles. When the couple first arrives on the island the lighting and positioning of the camera is stable and grounded, engendering a loving feeling of peace. However, as the couple are forced to interact with the “others” on the island the visual style of the movie changes. Shadows crawl over the characters faces reinforcing earlier visual motifs and casting doubt on the nature of who’s who. At another point, hyper saturated white light is used to create an almost blinding encounter that feels like a fever dream come to life. The constantly changing styles makes the “reality” of the movie impossible to grasp as we, along with Alma, are forced to piece together the nature of the situation.
This indeterminacy in exemplified in the visual style of the movie. When Alma initially starts her narration, the lighting is calming and feels natural. Her initial encounters with Johan are serene and warm – an Earthy grounded feeling. However, as the couple are made to interact with the others, the Earthy comfort gives way to Gothic terror. The lighting in these moments is exaggerated and more impressionistic, suggesting a break with reality. The cheerful face of Alma gives way to the sunken and sneering faces of the others. The stable camera associated with Alma gives way to a swerving, arcing camera completely unbounded and out of control. This change from calming to chaotic is also reflected in the soundscape which goes from sedated to disjointed and erratic. Multiple moments of the macabre are accompanied with an unnerving droning noise or characters voices completely disappearing as the background noise takes full control.
By modulating the appearance and presentation of each spectacle, Bergman is able to keep the carnival of terror going in an authentic, yet opaque way. Early on, Johan describes a series of grotesque drawings – a women with a removable scalp, a menacing bird-man, and so on – to Alma. These descriptions prime our minds to look for certain visual clues and serve as the starting “motifs” for the horrors to come. Later on, we get to explore excerpts from Johan’s journal. These mental excavations add to the texture of the motifs we have access to. When these projections bleed into the “real” world of the story, we’re never fully shown whether or not Alma and Johan are viewing the same thing or something different. Has Johan lost his mind and is Alma just humoring him? Has Alma been able to interpret Johan so much as if to share his delusion?
In the grander context of Bergman’s filmography, Hour of the Wolf is Bergman’s first movie after Persona, which makes sense given how many of themes and image archetypes the former continues from the latter. Both movies deal with a character named Alma who deals with a character they can’t seem to fully pin down. Both movies tackle the ways memory, cinema, and reality effect and bleed into one another. Both movies employ vampiric imagery in association with identity to probe the limits of what it means to know oneself and to know another. However, Hour of the Wolf feels far more autobiographical. Johan feels like a doppelgänger for Bergman himself. Among other things they’re both artists who bemoans themselves and the place of artists while continuing to create pieces that move people. Some of the monologues given by Johan are close to quotations given by Bergman verbatim, both in person and in previous films like The Magician. Watched in this way, Hour of the Wolf takes a paradoxical quality as Bergman’s psyche becomes both the movie’s subject and its object of fascination. It’s no wonder then that my appreciation of the movie has only grown over time as I’ve become more devoted to Bergman and the worlds he creates/created.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Hour of the Wolf asks the question, “Can we every really know anyone else?” and answers in a cascading series of surreal nightmare sequences that never fail to captivate. This narrative ménage à trois features an artist, his wife, and his patrons and fans. He seeks solace in ignorance. She seeks union in transparency with him. They seek, what seems to be, nothing more than the utter humiliation of the artist despite consuming his goods vociferously. Issues of identity bleed into issues of the nature of art which bleed into issues of intersubjectivity culminating in a melting pot of utter delirium. Those seeking a haunting time with no easy answers need look no further.
Rating
10/10
Grade
S+
Go to Page 2for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
