By Maria Lewis
When you think about the cinematic depictions of sisterhood, the unique relationship between female siblings in the mainstream is so often designated to romantic comedies. There’s the aptly titled Sisters, In Her Shoes and Your Sister’s Sister, to name a few. The flip side is dramas, like Hannah and Her Sisters, Little Women, The Virgin Suicides, My Sister’s Keeper and Blue Jasmine. Yet horror, of all places, has become an unlikely genre where sisterhood – in all its complexity and beauty – is being not only examined but celebrated.
French film Raw is the latest to do this. You’ve probably heard of it, as it famously had people pass out during a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival because of the graphic depictions of cannibalism. But hey, it’s a cannibal movie: human flesh is going to be consumed. Either get on-board or don’t jump on the boat. It follows veterinary student Justine who – despite being raised a vegetarian – begins to experience a hankering for meat of the people variety after a hectic hazing ritual at her school. Her older sister Alexia is also a student there and despite the pair often being at odds, they share some dietary preferences. Written and directed by Julia Ducournau, it has the deft touch of a woman who understands the dueling nature of what it is to have sisters and be a sister. She captures the extreme love and extreme hate that often exists simultaneously, with a scene involving a physical fight between Alexia and Justine going hand-in-hand with ones of them supporting each other, laughing with each other and living with each other. All of this is of course wrapped up in the package of cannibalism being a metaphor for a young woman’s sexual awakening. However, the thing that leaves a lasting impression in the days after you’ve seen Raw is the bond of the two sisters and how that is so masterfully portrayed.
It’s not the first flick to look at familial relations in such a gleefully bloody manner: it’s not even the first cannibal movie about sisters (Can that please become a very specific subgenre already? Thanks). We Are What We Are from 2013 – itself a remake of the Mexican film of the same name – also shared many of the same themes including sexual awakening, family legacy and examination of womanhood. It did so in a much more Southern Gothic Americana fashion, but it too was an impactful film that warrants a revisit more often than you’d think a movie about a family of cannibals would. Outside of the kitchen, there’s no shortage of examples where horror has been the vessel for stories of sisters: the Ginger Snaps series being the most obvious and enduring. Japan’s A Tale Of Two Sisters is also worth a mention, Mama from 2013 is a totally underrated and gorgeous example, along with Brian De Palma’s Sisters from the seventies and Practical Magic, which straddles the line between three sister-loving genres in drama, rom-com and horror.
The stakes of a horror film, by the very definition of the genre, are high: always high. Those scenarios give filmmakers an interesting lens from which to examine the nature of sisterhood and what it means to exist inside that complex, complicated and often-crazy relationship. Within horror, sisterhood is usually shown as a thing of strength: despite their differences, the women are brought together and unite against a greater force. It’s telling that that force is often something that strikes at the very core of who they are as women: whether that’s the inner monster they’re battling with (Raw, Ginger Snaps, We Are What We Are) or an external monster they’re trying to destroy (Practical Magic, Mama). They say you can’t pick your family, but you can pick who sits beside you at the dinner table of life. Sometimes that person you carefully, thoughtfully select is your sister. And sometimes what you’re being served isn’t necessarily roast beef but, well, people. The metaphor here is people.
Maria Lewis is a journalist and author who can be seen on The Feed, weeknights on SBS Viceland. She’s the presenter and producer of the Eff Yeah Film & Feminism podcast. Her debut novel Who’s Afraid? was released in 2016 with the sequel – Who’s Afraid Too? – out now. You can find her on Twitter @MovieMazz.
