Speaker 1: On the dol Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef and best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the bec del Cast. So, Kitlyn,
Speaker 1: we're basically podcast sisters, right, Oh yeah, of course. Okay, So, uh,
Speaker 1: I can tell you anything, right, Yeah, that's what podcast
Speaker 1: sisters are to each other. Okay, so I have to
Speaker 1: tell you that the other night when you give me
Speaker 1: that Brazilian I did eat your finger? Are we still cool?
Speaker 1: I do remember my finger getting cut off. I know
Speaker 1: you like came to and you're like issiating my finger,
Speaker 1: and I was like, you're dreaming, but I did do it,
Speaker 1: and I just kind of wanted to like check into
Speaker 1: your people are feeling about that. I'm glad you felt
Speaker 1: comfortable enough divulging that to me. Sisters, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. Now is my turn to tell you that
Speaker 1: I didn't eat your finger, but I ate the finger
Speaker 1: and the other body parts of a lot of people.
Speaker 1: You know what, I actually forgive you because that makes
Speaker 1: me feel better about what I did, which is not
Speaker 1: comparatively as I think we're good. Our mom probably did it.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming it's somewhere in the bloodline. Like I'm not
Speaker 1: even worried about it. I love you, Love you too,
Speaker 1: Jamie Enjoyed Jail. Welcome to the Bechtel Cast, Jamie Lawfus.
Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Durante and this is our show
Speaker 1: in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 1: Using the Bechtel test simply is a jumping off point,
Speaker 1: that being, of course, a media metric created by queer
Speaker 1: cartoonist Alison Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace test, that requires,
Speaker 1: for our purposes, two people of any marginalized gender with
Speaker 1: names have to speak to each other about something other
Speaker 1: than a man. Ideally that conversation is meaningful to the
Speaker 1: narrative right, which you would think would be hard to do.
Speaker 1: For many movies, it is hard to do, but guess what, Baby,
Speaker 1: Today we're covering a movie where it is not hard
Speaker 1: to do, because there is so much to talk about
Speaker 1: in this movie between characters who are not men, and
Speaker 1: they're doing all manner of fucked up, funked up stuff.
Speaker 1: I am so excited to be where first of all,
Speaker 1: I wanted to just give us kind of a little
Speaker 1: ribbon and say. The movie today is from Frost. It
Speaker 1: is a Lesma to movie. So I felt like a
Speaker 1: genius watching this movie because we are socially conditioned to
Speaker 1: think that French equals sophisticated. I felt very chic today
Speaker 1: as I was preparing for this episode, and I could
Speaker 1: not be more excited to talk about the movie. It
Speaker 1: is tens Raw, directed by Julia Ducorno, and we have
Speaker 1: an incredible returning guest who brought this movie to us,
Speaker 1: and I could not be more grateful. Yes, she is
Speaker 1: a host of Kicking and Screaming podcast. She will soon
Speaker 1: be on Behind the Monsters on Shutter and do you
Speaker 1: remember her from our episodes on Maide in Manhattan and
Speaker 1: Atomic Blonde. It's Vanessa Guerrero. Yeah, wellcome back, welcome back.
Speaker 1: Thank you for freaking us this movie. Thank you for
Speaker 1: watching this movie. Because pitching to people a movie that
Speaker 1: is like minutes of Cannibalism, is it the easiest thing
Speaker 1: to do in the world. And the fact that we're
Speaker 1: all this hype to talk about it, I am thrilled,
Speaker 1: so excited. I also would argue that when a woman
Speaker 1: eats another woman's finger, that does pass the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: That's true. I mean that is an intimate communication of
Speaker 1: the mind and body. I mean it's kind of transcends
Speaker 1: the Bechtel cast in many ways. Yeah, that's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So let's talk. Let's get get into it. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a pretty recent movie, came out five years ago. Vanessa.
Speaker 1: What is your connection to this movie? How did it
Speaker 1: come into your life? Um? So the way, I have
Speaker 1: a lot of fondness for this movie because it also
Speaker 1: kind of started with like my relationship and my husband
Speaker 1: who I'm married to now. So it's one of like
Speaker 1: the weirder First Few Days movies. But basically when we
Speaker 1: had met, I was working on an article about sex
Speaker 1: and horror and how for some people kind of an
Speaker 1: entryway into like safely figuring out for themselves like something
Speaker 1: off kilter that they might be into. And at the
Speaker 1: time we met as friends, and he came over and
Speaker 1: recommended a movie called um Southbound, and it's an anthology series,
Speaker 1: but one of it includes like a medical horror moment
Speaker 1: um and it has a lot of like specifically, it's
Speaker 1: like a lot of like sound and sensation. And I
Speaker 1: proceeded to get too breathy on a couch next to
Speaker 1: a man that I just brought into my house for
Speaker 1: the first time that we were definitely not dating, like
Speaker 1: embarrassingly breathy about it, literally blushing talking about it now,
Speaker 1: and uh, he was super chill about it. It was
Speaker 1: just like, that's weird. I just learned something that I
Speaker 1: like right there. And immediately he was like, have you
Speaker 1: seen the movie Raw, because he's basically like knocking on
Speaker 1: people's doors, being like, this is my Lord and xavior
Speaker 1: Julia Dick right now, and he's like, this is so
Speaker 1: like perfect for the piece that you're working on. And
Speaker 1: so he'd been waiting for her to watch it with me,
Speaker 1: and we finally watched it together, and then the entire
Speaker 1: time I kept looking at him and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is the closest thing that has ever felt both
Speaker 1: terrifying and right to like my experiences with sexual awakening,
Speaker 1: especially like growing up in a very repressed household in
Speaker 1: school system, so like this became so valuable. Like the
Speaker 1: last time I felt like this watching a movie was
Speaker 1: American Psycho, when I was like, Oh, this is what
Speaker 1: it looks like when a woman does something terrifying. This
Speaker 1: is what it looks like when a woman like examines
Speaker 1: something like this and like this where the intimacies changed
Speaker 1: based on who's behind the camera. The last time I
Speaker 1: felt that way was like seeing Mary har And do something.
Speaker 1: And now I'm just like all about whatever Julia Dickerno does.
Speaker 1: She could she could just do like a weird TikTok accidentally,
Speaker 1: and I'm like perfect art cinema. Yeah, we were talking
Speaker 1: about the new movie of hers that is either already
Speaker 1: has come out depending on when this episode drops or
Speaker 1: is about to come out. It's like the releases like
Speaker 1: right around this time. Uh, we're not sure of the pronunciation.
Speaker 1: It could be. We kept saying type tannic pane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not exactly sure, but it is her new movie
Speaker 1: and it looks pretty cool. It really does. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this this movie is I just I'm so thrilled about it.
Speaker 1: I had never I had heard of this movie. I
Speaker 1: had heard of Julia Ducornet, and it was just like
Speaker 1: not something that I and this is I feel like,
Speaker 1: especially in the past year or so, this has been
Speaker 1: like changing pretty rapidly. But I never thought of myself
Speaker 1: as a horror fan or someone who is naturally drawn
Speaker 1: to horror. But seeing a movie like this. It is
Speaker 1: absolutely a horror movie, but it's also like a coming
Speaker 1: of age movie, which is very much something that give
Speaker 1: almost any coming of age movie a fair shot. And
Speaker 1: I was pleasantly taken off guard by how much I
Speaker 1: loved this movie from almost every alex. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: so excited to talk about it. I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: it exists, and I'm so glad that directors like Julia
Speaker 1: Ducarno are working at such a high level. I wish
Speaker 1: that like this had I was happy that. I mean,
Speaker 1: this movie is pretty accessible, like you can watch it
Speaker 1: for free a number of places to be I believe
Speaker 1: is one of the ones. Yeah, yeah, I was. I
Speaker 1: for one was a to be head for this. I
Speaker 1: watched five tied commercials in a row and then continue
Speaker 1: to watch raw whatever by any means, but I hope
Speaker 1: that this, as time goes on, becomes like a horror
Speaker 1: classic that is like not out of left field to
Speaker 1: say that you've seen because I just thought it was wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thank you Vanessa for bringing it. I truly can't thank
Speaker 1: you enough. It's so good. I also love that you
Speaker 1: specifically brought like coming of age because horror is such
Speaker 1: a perfect vehicle for that, Like you've seen it used
Speaker 1: with both like um, I mean as literal as like
Speaker 1: werewolf stuff where it's like suddenly I'm getting hair everywhere
Speaker 1: and it's awkward to like more horrifying, visceral things. And
Speaker 1: I feel like we have this collective amnesia about how
Speaker 1: awful and gross and terrifying but also exhilarating puberty was,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes when we like examine it, it's usually with
Speaker 1: like a ukulele and like butterfly knesses, and it's it's
Speaker 1: something that kind of takes away this like feral nature
Speaker 1: that we all kind of adopt as we're learning all
Speaker 1: of the weird things our bodies do and how we
Speaker 1: want to interact with other people. And I feel like
Speaker 1: there truly should be more horror coming of age things,
Speaker 1: because I cannot tell you how many times I'd like
Speaker 1: pull down my pants or look in the mirror and
Speaker 1: be like what is as a teenager? And it's the
Speaker 1: scariest thing I've ever seen. My life was a horror
Speaker 1: movie once a month when I got my period, because
Speaker 1: I've never been in more pain than every time I
Speaker 1: get my period. Yeah, So I grew up. I didn't
Speaker 1: get sex said in school, and so I thought I
Speaker 1: was shipping myself for a while because it feels like
Speaker 1: you do because your internal organs are just like flexing
Speaker 1: and unflexing. If you pull down your pants and it's brown.
Speaker 1: I just felt like it was a reasonable I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's so bizarre because I don't remember shipping myself, but
Speaker 1: I guess that that's just what's been happening. They don't
Speaker 1: prepare us for clots, No, they don't at all prepare
Speaker 1: you for blood clots or the fact that some days
Speaker 1: you might just have a jellyfish in your panties. Like
Speaker 1: they were like, it's just like a little bit of
Speaker 1: blood every month, and we are all wholly unprepared for
Speaker 1: the first time it gets nearly. And also it's like,
Speaker 1: if you don't have someone on the ground to let
Speaker 1: you know what's going on, all you see on TV
Speaker 1: is it's blue. It's not even the color is done
Speaker 1: weird blue stuff onto pads, and it's like, in what
Speaker 1: world is this helpful? This kool aid jammer fell into
Speaker 1: your panties? What do you do? Like cool? Not to
Speaker 1: pull out the kool Aid jammer reference, but that was
Speaker 1: at thirteen, I knew more about kool Aid Jammer than
Speaker 1: I did about my own body. Um good grief. Um.
Speaker 1: I had seen this movie before a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: I remember it. It has gotten kind of more and
Speaker 1: more buzz since it came out, so I wanted to
Speaker 1: say I saw it in like en ish. I was
Speaker 1: surprised by how much I remember it, because usually if
Speaker 1: I see a movie once and then a few years passed,
Speaker 1: it's I might as well have never seen the movie
Speaker 1: because I simply remember nothing. But as I was rewatching
Speaker 1: it for this episode, I was like, oh, yeah, and
Speaker 1: I remember that, and I remember that I remember, was
Speaker 1: like so much had made an impression. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh cool, there's a lot of perspectives you don't see
Speaker 1: enough of so that when you do see it, it's
Speaker 1: just in your brain forever. Yeah, it really like leaves
Speaker 1: a lasting impression. So yeah, I was excited to rewatch
Speaker 1: it for this and yeah, we've got a lot to
Speaker 1: talk about. By that same token, though, I Jamie, we
Speaker 1: were talking about this where we're like, I like kind
Speaker 1: of don't. I didn't write down any notes for this
Speaker 1: because I'm just like, yeah, it was good. It was
Speaker 1: handled well, end of note, and it really is. It's
Speaker 1: like I feel like it's rare to find a movie
Speaker 1: that so like sucks you in. Yeah. That I found
Speaker 1: it hard to like pause to take note because I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't really want I really want to.
Speaker 1: I'm having too much fun. It's very fluid. There aren't
Speaker 1: really any moments that like slow down or like maybe
Speaker 1: that the pacing is like, oh here, I can like
Speaker 1: look at my phone for a second. Because I think
Speaker 1: this is just like another benefit of having a woman
Speaker 1: behind the camera. The main character has always looked at
Speaker 1: with like curiosity instead of like judgment or like what
Speaker 1: is this small delicate creature? Uh, to where it feels
Speaker 1: like a very intense nature documentary about a person. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. I felt like there was a lot
Speaker 1: of camera choices that were so I mean, we're so
Speaker 1: like every time you see Justine, she's hunched over and
Speaker 1: if she's like she looks like she's the subject of
Speaker 1: a nature documentary. The entire movie. It's. Yeah, the first
Speaker 1: time you see like Alexis in the intro and she
Speaker 1: like runs into the street and you know, causes the
Speaker 1: car accident. She sprints like a dog or an animal
Speaker 1: that's like running into traffic. She's like on all fours
Speaker 1: and it's so deliberate, Like it feels like the way
Speaker 1: an animal hunts for something and you see her from
Speaker 1: far away, and it does have that like far enough
Speaker 1: removed thing to where by stripping all of these characters
Speaker 1: of humanity and treating them like animals, it just makes
Speaker 1: it feel all the more human it was. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: movie in particular just feels like you can just feel
Speaker 1: that it is like women perceiving other women. Yes, like
Speaker 1: in a way that it doesn't feel like it's bopping
Speaker 1: you over the head with a mallet, but it just
Speaker 1: like intuitively feels that way. Like if I saw this
Speaker 1: movie knew nothing about it would be like this movie
Speaker 1: had to have been made by someone who intuitively understood
Speaker 1: Justine's experience and like where she would be coming from,
Speaker 1: because I don't know, like you can just feel it.
Speaker 1: I had that thought when I watched the peeing standing
Speaker 1: up scene. Yeah, oh my gosh, because I knew never
Speaker 1: in a million years would a dude ever include something
Speaker 1: like that. And that's like a very specific kind of
Speaker 1: camaraderie that would be considered gross that like men would
Speaker 1: be like that's too gross, and they don't really understand
Speaker 1: how down to be disgusting. We are like quote unquote disgusting,
Speaker 1: but like I also like deeply like as somebody that
Speaker 1: like has a vagina wanted to learn how to pee
Speaker 1: standing up so bad when because I was like, it's cool,
Speaker 1: like anyone of the penis can just like run off
Speaker 1: and then like piss in the bushes and then come
Speaker 1: back and keep playing. I want to pee standing up.
Speaker 1: So like when I saw that scene, it felt so
Speaker 1: close to like similar experiences of like other girls being
Speaker 1: like you want to see what this does? That it
Speaker 1: like I was like, I've never seen anything like this
Speaker 1: that scene. What I really enjoyed that scene, and I
Speaker 1: thought that the way that it was shot was perfect.
Speaker 1: It's like I don't know, I mean, and for a
Speaker 1: movie that is about cannibal ism, it feels bizarre to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know, it didn't feel exploitatively shot
Speaker 1: at all, but it really didn't like it was. It
Speaker 1: felt like you got what you needed there, which is
Speaker 1: the sisterhood at and also just like how many people
Speaker 1: are you going to be that comfortable enough around to
Speaker 1: be like, let's peace standing up even though it's going
Speaker 1: to be messy. I don't know. I every time I
Speaker 1: pee it sounds like a helicopter is landing and it's
Speaker 1: like all over the place. But I certainly did try
Speaker 1: at different points in my life. I never realized how
Speaker 1: powerful my stream is until I pee outside, Like I'm
Speaker 1: so used to hearing it in the bowl, and then
Speaker 1: the first time it hits dirt, I'm like, I'm doing that.
Speaker 1: If you're just like, wow, I'm so let's bring that
Speaker 1: strength to other areas of my body and life. We're
Speaker 1: going to get those muscles everywhere, because my god, that's forceful.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, this could knock someone out. But I
Speaker 1: don't know who knows. Wow. Anyways, when we're talking about
Speaker 1: that's so excited about talking about peeing outside forceful peas, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love a good forceful pe Uh. Let me let
Speaker 1: me just not on the recap mp in take a
Speaker 1: little bite out of the recap. Shall we look at her? Go? Um? So,
Speaker 1: the movie starts on an open road where we see
Speaker 1: a woman running into the road and seems to be
Speaker 1: deliberately causing a car to crash into a tree, and
Speaker 1: then we see her approach the crash, and then it
Speaker 1: cuts to a young woman, Justine. She's dining with her parents.
Speaker 1: We learned that they are all strict vegetarians. Then they
Speaker 1: drop her off at her first day of veterinary school,
Speaker 1: and the first night there, she and the other like
Speaker 1: freshman students get hazed by the upperclassmen and they're brought
Speaker 1: to this big party. There she meets her roommate Adrian.
Speaker 1: Adrian Audrian, I don't know the French France there, I was.
Speaker 1: I It made me laugh a little bit, and we
Speaker 1: talked about we we recorded an episode earlier today about
Speaker 1: Revenge of the Nerds, so there's been this like related
Speaker 1: but deeply unrelated through line of hazing to what we've
Speaker 1: been talking about all day. But I just thought it
Speaker 1: was so like, not unbelievable, because it's like I certainly
Speaker 1: haven't been to veterinary school, but I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: is hazing that intense among vets? Fuck? Yeah, it seems intense.
Speaker 1: Where I was just like, I don't know anything about
Speaker 1: the world, so I'm just going to have to believe you.
Speaker 1: I guess I know. I was looking for I literally
Speaker 1: I was seeking out vet insight because I was just like,
Speaker 1: is it that intense. They're like, are you Are you
Speaker 1: all okay? Should I bring my cocker spaniel to the
Speaker 1: likes of you if you're dumping blood on each other? Like,
Speaker 1: we don't know? Yeah, hard to say, Yeah, I could
Speaker 1: not speak from experience, believe it or not. Wait, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: are you not a betted yourself to me? I did
Speaker 1: not go to a French veterinary school. This is the
Speaker 1: foremost French veterinary feminist podcast. So that's interesting. I don't
Speaker 1: have a master's degree in veterinary study then from France
Speaker 1: University where you can only work on French horses and
Speaker 1: French dogs. Yes, very very they're they're wearing hats. It's nice. Um, okay.
Speaker 1: So Justine's older sister, Alex also goes to this school.
Speaker 1: She's an upper classman or an upper class woman. I
Speaker 1: did write that in my recap, by the way, in
Speaker 1: case anyone was curious. That was brave of you to
Speaker 1: say thank you. They catch up with each other if
Speaker 1: we find out that their parents also went to this
Speaker 1: vet school. They kind of don't totally see eye to
Speaker 1: eye on things, but they're excited to see each other.
Speaker 1: And then Justine starts classes the hazing continues throughout the week.
Speaker 1: They all have to eat a raw rabbit kidney as
Speaker 1: part of their hazing. Are the vets of the world
Speaker 1: doing this like, it's not It didn't bump me at all.
Speaker 1: I was. I'm just genuinely curious if there's hazing in
Speaker 1: veterinary school. Vet's sound off in the comments. I didn't
Speaker 1: go to college, so that's what I'm assuming all colleges
Speaker 1: like I went to loser college, and so I don't
Speaker 1: know anyway. So she's presented with having to eat this
Speaker 1: raw rabbit kidney, and Justine is like, I can't eat that.
Speaker 1: I'm a vegetarian. But her sister is like, no, just
Speaker 1: eat it, be cool, So Justine does. Uh. Then she
Speaker 1: seems to have a reaction to having eaten the rabbit kidney.
Speaker 1: She develops a severe rash all over her body. She
Speaker 1: goes to see a doctor about it, who tells her
Speaker 1: it's probably food poisoning and that she should fast for
Speaker 1: a day. But Justine's like, well, except I'm very hungry.
Speaker 1: And then we see her steal a burger patty from
Speaker 1: the dining hall and we're like, wait a minute, is
Speaker 1: isn't she a vegetarian, what's going on? And then her
Speaker 1: roommate Adrian takes Justine off campus to like eat her
Speaker 1: first meat meal. On the way, they see the scene
Speaker 1: of that car accident from the beginning of the movie.
Speaker 1: They passed that, and then they get their food, and
Speaker 1: justin gas station food representation, I feel like there's not
Speaker 1: enough gas station food in movies for how prevalent it
Speaker 1: is in the real world. I mean, as a frequenter
Speaker 1: of both sheets and Wahwas in my days in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: Wow Mayra vastown over here at the Wahwa. I grew
Speaker 1: up in mostly sheets territory, so I've been to many
Speaker 1: more sheets than Wahwas. But Vanessa, what was your what
Speaker 1: was your go to gas station food? Growing up? Man,
Speaker 1: I didn't really experience like full on gas like actual
Speaker 1: like meal meals that weren't chip bags until I was
Speaker 1: like an adult in Los Angeles. But many of the
Speaker 1: ones by my high school would do like literally open
Speaker 1: any chip and you can just dump it under the
Speaker 1: chili and cheese, and so those with hot cheetos and
Speaker 1: pickled Hallo pengos and then a bunch of Chilian cheese,
Speaker 1: and then I would just eat it with chop sticks,
Speaker 1: and now I wonder why I have ulcers all the time. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure this is completely unrelated. No, that's completely unrelated.
Speaker 1: It has to be. But it was like the popular
Speaker 1: like get that and then walk home from school. And
Speaker 1: then because we also like went to a private school,
Speaker 1: we were like dying to eat garbage by the time
Speaker 1: school got out. So then we were just like double
Speaker 1: down on those. Hell yeah, Jamie, what's your go to
Speaker 1: meal or experience? It's improved over time, but in uh,
Speaker 1: at least in I don't even know if it's all
Speaker 1: of New England, but there's Cumberland Farms is the gas
Speaker 1: station of note and you go to Compies, you get
Speaker 1: a slushy, you get they have really good hot dogs,
Speaker 1: which is like part part of my early adoption to
Speaker 1: hot dogs was Cumbies hot dogs. They actually kept them
Speaker 1: sort of hot, which felt very chic and novel because
Speaker 1: they did cost seventy nine cents. So I love Cumbies
Speaker 1: food to this day. I was getting like a lot
Speaker 1: of like they because I feel like the gas stations
Speaker 1: in the last ten years have been trying to like
Speaker 1: make their food at least appear more healthy. Because now
Speaker 1: when I go to combies, when I visit home, they're like,
Speaker 1: would you like a grilled chicken wrap? I was like,
Speaker 1: there's no way, there's no way. But it's like hot
Speaker 1: dog as like, I don't come here for the grilled
Speaker 1: chicken wrap, but I appreciate a for effort. Anyways, anyway,
Speaker 1: gas station hot dogs and same thing. So she we
Speaker 1: see her hungrily eat a bunch of meat, and then
Speaker 1: later back at her dorm, we see her eat some
Speaker 1: raw chicken. We're like, Wow, something's really happening to Justine.
Speaker 1: And then she coughs up a bunch of her own
Speaker 1: hair that she chewed on, which was gross. Got that scene.
Speaker 1: I loved the audio mixing on that scene had me
Speaker 1: skin crawling the entire time. Yeah, there's a I got
Speaker 1: really into this. Not into but I read a book
Speaker 1: about It's. I guess it's a type of like ulcer
Speaker 1: tumor like thing I'm not a doctor, called a teratoma
Speaker 1: that can form inside of people. I read a memoir
Speaker 1: of someone who had something like this that her body
Speaker 1: just started acting ways that she didn't recognize, and it's
Speaker 1: just this kind of like it sounds like a horror movie.
Speaker 1: It is a combination of like hair and half grown
Speaker 1: teeth and just like my aunt had one of those. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: like and it's like it's filled the teeth. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a hairball full of teeth that grows inside of people.
Speaker 1: And it's like it is I don't know, it's very
Speaker 1: it's very visually fast and he but it also was
Speaker 1: like so under discussed that when it happens to someone,
Speaker 1: they're like, this doesn't sound real, Like how was what? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it reminded me of that Tara Toomas. If you want
Speaker 1: to fun google rabbit hole, Wow is your Did it
Speaker 1: work out okay for your aunt? And it got removed
Speaker 1: and everything? Yeah, she got that one removed. And then
Speaker 1: I was just like obsessed with Tara Toomas. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that's what it, but like the idea of like
Speaker 1: hair and stuff like that growing and like that's seen
Speaker 1: especially yes nails. And then I had a hat a
Speaker 1: pe teacher where she grew an extra road teeth in
Speaker 1: her mouth. She said that that I can't remember. She
Speaker 1: said that her doctor said it was like she had
Speaker 1: like a pregnancy or something and like the extra hormones
Speaker 1: went a little crazy before like she like lost the
Speaker 1: baby without realizing that she did, because she wasn't even
Speaker 1: trying to get pregnant, and so she just like had
Speaker 1: a quick influx of hormones and then she just woke
Speaker 1: up one day and found like three little teeth coming
Speaker 1: out of like the bottom of her mouth, like behind
Speaker 1: her bottom jaw. And the second I heard that, I
Speaker 1: like checked my mouth in the mirror every day and
Speaker 1: I was just like, do I have teeth now? And
Speaker 1: like do you never really think about how much body
Speaker 1: horror happens just because of hormones? Right? Like It's just
Speaker 1: I love body horror so much and it's there couldn't
Speaker 1: be more grounds for it to exist, Like it is
Speaker 1: such a real thing. It's wow. Yeah, my birth control
Speaker 1: makes my mouth bleed spontaneously. Oh, I love that. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that it was a thing until one day
Speaker 1: I just tasted copper and they're like, yeah, some people
Speaker 1: protest their own. Birth control just makes their mouth, their
Speaker 1: gums just start bleeding bleeding. My birth control made my
Speaker 1: libido go away for like five years. That was that
Speaker 1: was body horror. That is I've ever heard it. Bodies
Speaker 1: are horrible and that is where rock comes in. Oh,
Speaker 1: does it want to tell you that, right, And I'm
Speaker 1: just pulling a hairball like it's a shower in your throat. God. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone listening, google Taratoma if you want to have some
Speaker 1: wild dreams for the next two to three months. Pass hard,
Speaker 1: pass for me. Um. Okay. So, then Justine hangs out
Speaker 1: with her sister Alex. They bond a bit. This is
Speaker 1: when we get I think the peeing standing up scene.
Speaker 1: Alex also gives Justine a bikini wax, which goes wrong.
Speaker 1: Scissors have to be involved, and then there's a mishap
Speaker 1: with the scissors which leads to one of Alex's fingers
Speaker 1: getting cut off. Alex passes out, and as Justine waits
Speaker 1: for the paramedics to arrive, she starts to lick the
Speaker 1: blood off of the severed finger and then whips it daisy.
Speaker 1: She eats the finger. Also, the music that's happening in
Speaker 1: this scene is mesmerizing. Yeah. Yeah, the score for this
Speaker 1: movie is so good. Yeah. There's an actual sex scene later,
Speaker 1: and it's not played the same like it was. It
Speaker 1: was weirdly sensual the way she like shot the eating
Speaker 1: of the finger more than like actual sex scenes later
Speaker 1: to where it was like This is the awakening moment.
Speaker 1: This is the moment like in most movies where a
Speaker 1: girl was like I feel tingles, and now it's this,
Speaker 1: except she's eating a finger. That feeling when you eat
Speaker 1: a finger for the first time. You know who can
Speaker 1: relate that? Yeah, that whole scene, The way that that
Speaker 1: scene is executed on every level was like in the
Speaker 1: hands of someone less competent would have been So I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it still is can't be in a way,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't feel like you're so like you know
Speaker 1: that she's probably going to eat the finger, but it
Speaker 1: still feels so shocking when she does it because the
Speaker 1: actress is doing such an incredible job. That direction is
Speaker 1: so good. The reaction when the sister wakes up is
Speaker 1: so fucked like it's just so good. The score like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was literally like pulling my sheets the entire time
Speaker 1: because I knew it was going to happen. But like,
Speaker 1: she very much does the thing where it's like taking
Speaker 1: the little bites and like the little tastes before and
Speaker 1: you're like, I know she's gonna fucking do it, but
Speaker 1: the tension, I know, it's so good, it's so good.
Speaker 1: So yeah, then then Alex wakes up and sees Justine
Speaker 1: eating her finger and gives her this like, what the
Speaker 1: funk are you doing? Look? And then we cat to
Speaker 1: the hospital. The parents have shown up, Alex's taken care of,
Speaker 1: and then she blames her missing finger on their dog Quickie,
Speaker 1: having eaten it, even though she knows it was Justine.
Speaker 1: Because Alex has a secret of her own. I know.
Speaker 1: At first, I was like, Alex, you're just gonna kill
Speaker 1: a dog over this, that's me, But then but she
Speaker 1: has her reasons. It's because she's protecting this family secret
Speaker 1: where she has also developed a taste for human flesh.
Speaker 1: It turns out she was the woman at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the movie who had caused that car crash, because
Speaker 1: she does this again and brings Justine with her, and
Speaker 1: she she causes another car to crash and then kind
Speaker 1: of goes over to eat the people. But Justine's like, no,
Speaker 1: that this is not what I want for myself and
Speaker 1: she storms off um. But then she notices how hungry
Speaker 1: and or horny, but mostly hungry she is for her
Speaker 1: roommate Adrian, and later at a party she's making out
Speaker 1: with this guy, she bites part of his lip off,
Speaker 1: he freaks out about it, and then she hooks up
Speaker 1: with Adrian and the whole time she's trying to bite
Speaker 1: at him and eat him, and he's like stop that.
Speaker 1: So then she bites her own arm and draws blood
Speaker 1: by gnawing on her own arm. Then Justine goes to
Speaker 1: this party and she gets really dry sunk, and she
Speaker 1: kind of again like surprise kisses, slash bites, surprise bites
Speaker 1: a few people, and then Alex finds her and takes
Speaker 1: her out of the situation. And then the next day
Speaker 1: at class, everyone's looking at Justine all weird, and it
Speaker 1: turns out the night before someone had taken a video
Speaker 1: of Alex kind of taunting a very drunk Justine with
Speaker 1: a cadaver. That's one way to describe that video that
Speaker 1: that video is so dark and again so well composed
Speaker 1: because it's so fucked up to watch, because Alex is
Speaker 1: basically like, here, eat it, eat the dead body, and Justine,
Speaker 1: who was like kind of too drunk to really do anything,
Speaker 1: is still like trying to like lunge at it and
Speaker 1: bite it and like eat it, but she's like just
Speaker 1: way too drunk to do anything. But there's a whole
Speaker 1: crowd of people watching this, and now everyone thinks that
Speaker 1: Justine is a is a week, so she confronts Alex
Speaker 1: about having done this to her, and they get in
Speaker 1: this big fight on campus. They're biting at each other,
Speaker 1: Alex bite a chunk out of Justine's face, but eventually
Speaker 1: they stopped fighting and then they kind of make up
Speaker 1: and Alex tends to Justine's face bite, and then the
Speaker 1: next morning, Justine wakes up in bed with Adrian, who
Speaker 1: turns out to be dead a huge chunk of his
Speaker 1: leg has been eaten. That reveal was also so devastating.
Speaker 1: You've really you can guess that Adrian's probably fucked, but
Speaker 1: I was still I was still folding out hope for him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really gross to look at, really gross. And it
Speaker 1: turns out he's been He was spiked in the abdomen
Speaker 1: by a ski pool and then eaten, and Justine at
Speaker 1: first thinks that she did it, but apparently it was
Speaker 1: Alex who had stabbed him and eaten him, and then
Speaker 1: Alex goes to prison for murder. Then we cut to
Speaker 1: Justine visiting her parents, and her dad reveals that what
Speaker 1: happened isn't her fault. Nor was it Alex's fault. Their
Speaker 1: hunger for human flesh is something their mother passed down
Speaker 1: to them, because he opens his shirt and reveals a
Speaker 1: bunch of scarring from when their mother had eaten chunks
Speaker 1: out of him, and he's like, don't worry, Justine, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you'll find a solution to your cannibal problem. The
Speaker 1: end cut to title amazing ending because the dad's literally
Speaker 1: just sitting there like kind of calm, looking like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love your mother, so she could just take hunks
Speaker 1: out of me whenever she wants, I guess. So let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we'll come right back
Speaker 1: to discuss. And we're back. So is this like a
Speaker 1: reverse Twilight situation? What's going on here? I was truly
Speaker 1: shocked at the reveal at the end that again, the
Speaker 1: first time I watched it, I did not see like
Speaker 1: so stark a reveal made and realizing how much it
Speaker 1: had been like seated in the beginning with their like
Speaker 1: interpersonal family relationships and you just kind of like view
Speaker 1: it as like, I don't know their parents that are
Speaker 1: kind of intense, I guess, And it tracks the entire time,
Speaker 1: but like side swipes you to where it's just like, oh,
Speaker 1: we all have to do this. She did it, I
Speaker 1: did it. We just have to do this in order
Speaker 1: to become like a fully formed adult, we have to
Speaker 1: go through this period. It makes me wonder like, would
Speaker 1: they have ever developed this hunger for human flesh had
Speaker 1: they not eaten the rabbit kidney? In which case, why
Speaker 1: do their parents insist on sending their daughters to this
Speaker 1: place where they know they'll eat this and then like
Speaker 1: that's like a hazing technique, yeah, and then they will
Speaker 1: develop these cannibalistic tendencies. I did have some questions walking
Speaker 1: away from the movie, but I do feel like I
Speaker 1: mean something that I because when when this movie ended,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, this is the kind of movie
Speaker 1: where like you have to just like go to the
Speaker 1: source and figure out. Okay, what was the writer director
Speaker 1: thinking when she made this? What has she publicly said
Speaker 1: this movie is about. I'm just I was so curious
Speaker 1: about her perspective on it. And I know that all
Speaker 1: of us have have spent some time. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I've probably spent the least out of everybody. But
Speaker 1: but I as I was watching interviews with her about
Speaker 1: this movie, I really appreciated and thought it was very
Speaker 1: fucking cool how she would engage with questions like that
Speaker 1: to an extent but would not give the yes or
Speaker 1: no answers that she was being asked. And as that
Speaker 1: kind of pertains to gender, it like challenged some stuff
Speaker 1: that I had gone into these interviews kind of assuming
Speaker 1: that she was trying to say. And I felt very
Speaker 1: challenged by Julia Ducarnov of how she responded to those
Speaker 1: questions because I don't know, I felt a little silly
Speaker 1: by the end where she was asked, you know, like
Speaker 1: is this a women's horror movie essentially? And which is
Speaker 1: like if you flipped that question for almost any profession,
Speaker 1: it's uh, pretty insulting. And I was just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: how many times have any of us been asked like, so,
Speaker 1: what is it like to be a woman comedy? And
Speaker 1: you're like, well, that's a shitty I object to the
Speaker 1: premise of the question, and I realized that I was
Speaker 1: sort of asking myself that question as a viewer of
Speaker 1: a horror movie, and she was sort of like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't you know, I don't really want to say
Speaker 1: either way. I don't think that will ask this question
Speaker 1: two men. I think that, you know, the protagonists of
Speaker 1: this movie could be a man potentially, and the movie
Speaker 1: could play out the same way. But this is the
Speaker 1: movie I wrote, so interpreted as you will, and I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just thought her attitude towards I think
Speaker 1: the very and current questions that are asked of filmmakers
Speaker 1: who are not white guys was very like punk rock
Speaker 1: and cool. I loved it. Yeah, It's something I love too, because,
Speaker 1: like I feel like in horror, especially when like marginalized
Speaker 1: people do manage to obtain the funding that they want
Speaker 1: to make something. Oftentimes, if you're like if you're a woman,
Speaker 1: or you're queer, or your trans or your POC, you're
Speaker 1: kind of expected to like sell your tragedy once you
Speaker 1: get the foot in the door, and you can't just
Speaker 1: tell a story to where it's just like I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell a horror story. But it's like, because horror
Speaker 1: is such a good vehicle for empathy, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: like I want you to like see what my experience is.
Speaker 1: But half the time that isn't even the stories they're
Speaker 1: trying to sell. It's the stories that they're being asked
Speaker 1: to sell. And because if you go back to the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. In the early two thousand's, you have
Speaker 1: these examples of like I've brought her up before, but
Speaker 1: Mary Hearn working on an American psycho, Or you have
Speaker 1: pet cemetery, you have like slumber party massacre, or where
Speaker 1: they're like just directed by women that want to tell stories.
Speaker 1: And there's almost this like sinister turn by like men
Speaker 1: in horror that hold the keys to the money towards like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm implying that I want to like encourage more voices,
Speaker 1: but it's only a certain kind and like I want
Speaker 1: you to reaffirm that I'm a great human, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm giving you these the money, but it's only to
Speaker 1: be like, look, how great of a human I am.
Speaker 1: I'm letting women tell their stories, but it's only like
Speaker 1: the stories I want them to tell, but only if
Speaker 1: they're talking about the worst thing that's ever happened to them. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you. And that's something that I
Speaker 1: feel like I've I've been trying to like check and
Speaker 1: challenge and myself as a viewer to where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: is wouldn't it just be the actual equal approach would
Speaker 1: be like here's money to make the movie you want
Speaker 1: to make. Exactly. It doesn't need to be a one
Speaker 1: to one analogy for something you have lived through, Like
Speaker 1: that is such an absurd qualifier. If that were true,
Speaker 1: sci fi wouldn't exist, like just most horror movies wouldn't exist.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I don't know, Julia, do Karna put me
Speaker 1: in my place and if I loved every second of it,
Speaker 1: it was great. She also speaks to how she's not
Speaker 1: like I'm a female director making female movie. She's like,
Speaker 1: I'm a filmmaker making movies that could speak to any
Speaker 1: audience member. And she's like, I don't want to genderize
Speaker 1: my audience or my movie. And then she kind of
Speaker 1: equates people's tendency to like put female directors into boxes
Speaker 1: like that and like, oh, well, you're a woman and
Speaker 1: you're making movies for women, and only women are going
Speaker 1: to connect to this because woman's can only like women things,
Speaker 1: and she like equates it to like how ridiculous it
Speaker 1: is for like razors marketed to women have to be
Speaker 1: pink and have to like cost more, and like pens
Speaker 1: that are marketed to women that are pink, and like
Speaker 1: she's like, no, like I'm not. I'm just making a
Speaker 1: movie that happens to focus on a woman and be
Speaker 1: about that young woman's experience. But it's a movie that
Speaker 1: literally any audience member could see and see humanity in
Speaker 1: and be compelled by in some way. Yeah, And like
Speaker 1: I noticed a lot of the criticism for raw usually
Speaker 1: for men. Um We're critiques that I see only when
Speaker 1: it's a woman directing, because I see men do the
Speaker 1: same thing and they're usually praised for it. There's a
Speaker 1: lot where it's like I felt like hyper stylized for
Speaker 1: no reason. It felt like, you know, very like colorful
Speaker 1: and poppy for no reason. And that's like something that
Speaker 1: you hear them say to like Sofia Coppola, or it's
Speaker 1: like why is it so fim? Because it's pretty? And
Speaker 1: I love self indulgence in filmmakers. I love it when
Speaker 1: you give me something that might be like a little
Speaker 1: bit unaccessible or like, you know, very flashy for the
Speaker 1: sake of flashy, because you get to you're behind the helm.
Speaker 1: But when it's like David Lynch making something an eternity long,
Speaker 1: or like gas bar Noa making something that looks the
Speaker 1: same fucking way their geniuses but for women, it's like
Speaker 1: too stylish. Yeah, right, And then also people were saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's so nice to have a woman director brought to
Speaker 1: this genre because it adds like a softness to the industry,
Speaker 1: And she was like, what are you talking about? Have
Speaker 1: you even seen my movie? Like this movie soft toilet
Speaker 1: paper is soft. I'm not soft. This is a direct
Speaker 1: quote from her, which is amazing. That's an amazing one,
Speaker 1: like T shirt, She's so good. I love her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really appreciated how like and and also this is
Speaker 1: like an unfair thing, like if she were a male director,
Speaker 1: this would not be a problem that she would be having,
Speaker 1: Like there wouldn't be this level of loaded question lodged
Speaker 1: to her every which way about what she's making. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I mean I hate that she has to
Speaker 1: do it, but she navigates these questions and issues. I thought, like,
Speaker 1: so in a way that made me want to be better.
Speaker 1: Like she's she's just awesome. She's intimidatingly French. Yes, she's so.
Speaker 1: I was like, even though I know, like I don't
Speaker 1: think I actually saw an interview where she was smoking
Speaker 1: a cigarette, but I felt like spiritually she was smoking
Speaker 1: a cigarette every time I saw her like long drags
Speaker 1: and like, yeah, there's so many points in this movie
Speaker 1: in which oftentimes I call something ugly and people think
Speaker 1: it's a negative, but like I love a lot of
Speaker 1: ugly things. Like my favor show as a kid was
Speaker 1: Couraged with The Cowardly Dog because all of the characters
Speaker 1: were like pretty ugly in Michieven looking such a massive
Speaker 1: fan of it, So like anything that's kind of ugly,
Speaker 1: and I feel like puberty tends to, like we brought
Speaker 1: it up earlier, have such a lens to it that
Speaker 1: when she shows those ugly moments, I have more of
Speaker 1: a wistful romance for my childhood than if I had
Speaker 1: watched something like The sand Lot to where I remember
Speaker 1: the last time I was free enough and felt safe
Speaker 1: enough to explore these things. Because there's a specific scene
Speaker 1: that felt like a literal one to one of a
Speaker 1: childhood experience I had, and I know it wasn't on purpose,
Speaker 1: It was just a very fun coincidence. Um it's that
Speaker 1: scene where she's like covered in blue paint and the
Speaker 1: guy that she's making out with his covered in yellow
Speaker 1: paint and they're essentially doing like the seven minutes in
Speaker 1: heaven and they're like, don't come out until you're green,
Speaker 1: and the guy runs out screaming. So because I had
Speaker 1: like a very religious upbringing, I did everything very differently.
Speaker 1: And it was also like measured with like excitement for
Speaker 1: the new, but also like this weird sense of like
Speaker 1: guilt and morning for like what I deemed the quote
Speaker 1: unquote innocent parts of me, because again I was like
Speaker 1: reckoning with that. And I remembered there was a class
Speaker 1: in Bible class where we came in and there was
Speaker 1: three lumps of plato on the desk, and he started
Speaker 1: the class by saying, like, you know, you're getting older
Speaker 1: and you're getting urges and even if you're like not
Speaker 1: acting on them when you have a partner, and he
Speaker 1: like mushed the two platos together and it was like
Speaker 1: purple and yellow. He was like, you like mix your
Speaker 1: colors in each other, but when you separate, you leave
Speaker 1: little bits of color in each other, and then eventually
Speaker 1: you start to lose your original color as you end
Speaker 1: up with your person. And so it was like, let's say,
Speaker 1: like you like end up with blue and then you've
Speaker 1: got all these bits in you and like a lot
Speaker 1: of the kids in class because like galaxy, it's galaxy
Speaker 1: brain charifying projection. It's massive shame projection. And like a
Speaker 1: lot of the I was mostly there because my parents
Speaker 1: had no idea what the school's deal was. They were
Speaker 1: just like, it's a private school, and we're from a
Speaker 1: developing nation, so it feels like it's a good deal.
Speaker 1: And a lot of them were kids whose like parents,
Speaker 1: very much like believed that kind of thing, and so
Speaker 1: they were very much like, yes, of course. And I
Speaker 1: got this terrifying, like intrusive thought the entire time where
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to be a rainbow. I
Speaker 1: want all the colors. I want to mix with all
Speaker 1: the colors, but I shouldn't because that's bad. And the
Speaker 1: next weekend, I was at a pool party and I
Speaker 1: noticed that there was this new kid in school that
Speaker 1: was staring at my chest. But I liked it, and
Speaker 1: we were alone in the pool later because everyone went inside,
Speaker 1: and he was like, can I like touch him? And
Speaker 1: I was like sure, and then he was like can
Speaker 1: we make out and maybe I can see him? And
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I'm good And then
Speaker 1: I left because I had gotten exactly what I wanted
Speaker 1: because I was like I just want to see what
Speaker 1: this is like and if that's cool, then I'm done.
Speaker 1: And he was utterly flabbergasted. And then in my mind,
Speaker 1: I just went on this mission where it's like I'm
Speaker 1: going to get the experience that I want and if
Speaker 1: I don't want it, and then I'm fucking walking away.
Speaker 1: And it was just the rest of high school, the
Speaker 1: amount of stuff that I did because I was curious.
Speaker 1: Before I actually had a first kiss, I like never
Speaker 1: I was talking to my husband about it, but I
Speaker 1: was like, I had most things that you would like
Speaker 1: try much later before I even let someone kiss me
Speaker 1: on the mouth, because I was just curious and like
Speaker 1: I saw that there. Yeah, yeah, I feel like this
Speaker 1: movie speaks to a lot of that, just like coming
Speaker 1: of age curiosity, and that's what I like really, and
Speaker 1: especially like after hearing the director speak about it, it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, this is a very skillfully told,
Speaker 1: like body horror coming of age movie that yes, there
Speaker 1: is a woman at the center of but like there's
Speaker 1: no mission statement related to the gender of the protagonist.
Speaker 1: It just like I don't know, like I just thought
Speaker 1: it was so because it it felt like at its core.
Speaker 1: The more I watched it, and the where I was
Speaker 1: sitting with it, it was like, whatever, this is a
Speaker 1: character who is going back and forth with a very
Speaker 1: eighteen year old problem, which is like who is the
Speaker 1: image that I have constructed of myself? And who am
Speaker 1: I becoming? And like where am I? Like what directions
Speaker 1: am I being pulled in? And what compromises am I
Speaker 1: willing to make as I become an adult? And like
Speaker 1: what am I actually very naive about that I'm afraid
Speaker 1: to admit And how does that relate to my family
Speaker 1: and how I grew up? And just all this ship
Speaker 1: that is very universal and to see that I've it
Speaker 1: made me just I don't know, like think about how
Speaker 1: rarely we see a very universal message channeled through a
Speaker 1: woman as a protagonist, which I feel like might be
Speaker 1: some of the cognitive dissonance I was experiencing of like, well,
Speaker 1: surely she must be trying to say something about woman
Speaker 1: and when what what happened to women? When women become women?
Speaker 1: But it's like, no, it's a very human experience. But
Speaker 1: I feel like we're conditioned to see these very human
Speaker 1: relatable heroes or I mean whatever, just need it's not
Speaker 1: a hero necessarily, but the person at the center of
Speaker 1: the story as usually men, and we're kind of expected
Speaker 1: to meet them where they're at with their experience, and
Speaker 1: the opposite is kind of rarely asked of people. But
Speaker 1: it's it's it's easy to do with this movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things where it's so much
Speaker 1: better to aim for specificity than trying to please everyone
Speaker 1: and automatically like be for everyone for the sake of
Speaker 1: being for everyone, instead of like telling us specific as
Speaker 1: of a story as you want. I for how much
Speaker 1: I disagree with like many, many, many reviews, all of
Speaker 1: his horror reviews and his thoughts on The Lake House,
Speaker 1: which were mostly positive, which is bizarre. There's a Rogerty
Speaker 1: review that like lives in my brain all the time,
Speaker 1: and it was a review for Brokeback Mountain, and he
Speaker 1: was talking about why telling a specific story will resonate
Speaker 1: with more people because you're telling something that is detailed
Speaker 1: and authentic versus something that's like trying to be for
Speaker 1: every experience, even once you don't fucking know. And he
Speaker 1: was like a lot of filmmakers try and like tell
Speaker 1: a queer story by being like, here's a little bit
Speaker 1: for everyone, even though I don't actually know the experience.
Speaker 1: And then it doesn't even like land with queer people,
Speaker 1: and so it's just like vague. It's just vague. And
Speaker 1: he's like, Brokeback Mountain was such a specific story about
Speaker 1: these two people, but he's like, you're watching like straight
Speaker 1: guys call people that they haven't called in years, as
Speaker 1: like the ones that got away. You're watching like women
Speaker 1: do the same thing. And it's like, because it was
Speaker 1: so specific, it resonated harder with like the idea of
Speaker 1: lost love that everyone knows versus something that's just like
Speaker 1: I don't know what, what do analytics say? Everyone will
Speaker 1: like right right right? Oh that is yeah. Also hate
Speaker 1: to hand it to him, but that right, that hit
Speaker 1: because he's got a lot of opinions I do not
Speaker 1: agree with. But but yeah, you're you're totally. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like this movie kind of does scratch that
Speaker 1: same itches, Like if if Justine's story was less specific,
Speaker 1: the story wouldn't work the way that it does. Yeah, which,
Speaker 1: speaking of scratching itches, the sound design, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that rash that she develops, and like
Speaker 1: the scene where it's like getting peeled off, like it's
Speaker 1: a lot I I also really I wanted to just
Speaker 1: kind of shout out the scene between her and the
Speaker 1: doctor who is spoking at the appointment, which I was like, hilarious.
Speaker 1: I was hilarious to me because I am such an
Speaker 1: American du fist that I'm like, is this a joke
Speaker 1: or like, is this just what French doctors are like?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but that scene I thought was so
Speaker 1: that was like one of those scenes where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: there was points were made in that scene, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't in a way that was I don't know that
Speaker 1: felt preachy or overwritten or anything like that. But the
Speaker 1: scene where Justine is going to get her rash looked
Speaker 1: at after it breaks out and she goes to a
Speaker 1: doctor or a nurse and has it looked at, she's
Speaker 1: not diagnosed correctly. They have a conversation and they have
Speaker 1: basically a conversation about how women are not taken seriously
Speaker 1: by doctors and specifically fat women in the context of
Speaker 1: the conversation, and it seems like Justine's take away from
Speaker 1: that conversation is like, well, this is a broken system.
Speaker 1: So this is not where I'm going to get the
Speaker 1: answers that I need and I thought that the way
Speaker 1: that Julia, I mean, I would be curious what other
Speaker 1: listeners think. I thought that the way that Julia Dukerno
Speaker 1: like illustrated that point by the doctor saying that she
Speaker 1: had had a fat woman as a patient who had
Speaker 1: been repeatedly not just misdiagnosed, but like refused medical care
Speaker 1: based on a like an issue that had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the size of her body, and having that
Speaker 1: be sort of a wake up call for Justine of like, well,
Speaker 1: this isn't a system that's going to serve me or
Speaker 1: like treat me fairly basically. I just, yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: that was like such a cool, effective way to make
Speaker 1: that point. It's truly mind blowing. Like some people, I think,
Speaker 1: I like blew a few minds when I told a
Speaker 1: few friends that there's a weight limit for Plan b OH,
Speaker 1: I did not realize that either. Yeah, it's only effective
Speaker 1: up until I think two pounds. And then like I
Speaker 1: saw that scene and I've like watched it. I watched
Speaker 1: it with my husband and I brought it up to
Speaker 1: him and he's like seen it himself. From like it
Speaker 1: took me a very long time to get diagnosed with
Speaker 1: a combination of like endometriosis and PCOS because I would
Speaker 1: go to the doctors all the time and they're just like, well,
Speaker 1: you're fat, lose weight and that's why you're having a
Speaker 1: bad period. And I'm like, this feels significantly worse than
Speaker 1: what you're describing. I'm like this, this feels like I
Speaker 1: need some medical intervention soon because I'm like now dealing
Speaker 1: with chronic anemia. And it wasn't until an e R
Speaker 1: doctor was like, have you never been tested for either
Speaker 1: of these things? Like has nobody ever considered it? I'm like,
Speaker 1: I've never even heard of it. I've been having these
Speaker 1: symptoms since I was like eleven years old, and I
Speaker 1: think I was like nineteen at the time, and it
Speaker 1: was like the first time I gained diagnosis. And now
Speaker 1: to this day, I will like go to doctors and
Speaker 1: get the same answer and I'm like, no, actually, I
Speaker 1: have these two things and my ovaries looked like a
Speaker 1: bunch of grape clusters, so if we can get that
Speaker 1: taken care of, and they're just like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's fat. To where I was just like whole, it
Speaker 1: just doesn't work. It's just like it just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: I did a lot of research on this topic for
Speaker 1: a podcast that I have abandoned Sludge an American healthcare story.
Speaker 1: It ended, you don't need to abandoned it because I'm
Speaker 1: done hiatus. Yeah we'll say that. Um, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: started to examine all the ways in which particularly marginalized
Speaker 1: people have been completely failed by the American health care
Speaker 1: system on the basis that they are fat, or they
Speaker 1: are trans, or they are a person of color, or
Speaker 1: any number of things. Yeah, it's a real bias that
Speaker 1: a lot of healthcare professionals harbor and people die as
Speaker 1: a result. So absolutely, and that doesn't even begin to
Speaker 1: bring in the insurance component of it, and how discriminatory
Speaker 1: that is on top of everything, Like it's even if
Speaker 1: you can find a doctor who's going to give you
Speaker 1: a proper diagnosis, can you will you be quote unquote
Speaker 1: allowed to have the issue treated? And I mean Justine's
Speaker 1: character is a sis white girl from a family of
Speaker 1: veterinary doctors, like she is very privileged and even so,
Speaker 1: I mean it was like the frustration and futility of
Speaker 1: that scene just like I don't know it it really
Speaker 1: hit for me because it was just like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is just a zero sum game. Where even though Justine
Speaker 1: is talking to a doctor who fully was outraged and
Speaker 1: recognized like why would a fat woman be refused medical treatment?
Speaker 1: Like that's absolutely ridiculous. But even so, the doctor who
Speaker 1: is saying that is also dismissing Justine's concerns that she
Speaker 1: has about her own and is misdiagnosing her. So it's like, well,
Speaker 1: even the doctor that quote unquote gets it is fucking
Speaker 1: up and not listening to their patient and taking their
Speaker 1: issue seriously. So like, who the fund do you turn to?
Speaker 1: In that scene, Justine does not get diagnosed with cannibalism,
Speaker 1: and that's up. You need to start letting smoking doctors
Speaker 1: tell us where cannibals is. It's also like why she
Speaker 1: runs into Alexis arms. Yeah, for sure you're gonna go
Speaker 1: to anyone that's like, hey, this is what I think
Speaker 1: is going on with your and like, I guess you
Speaker 1: know more than me. I don't know. Yeah, that scene
Speaker 1: I thought like that scene was so I just have
Speaker 1: never seen a scene like that before that made a
Speaker 1: very legitimate and impactful point about something and also advanced
Speaker 1: the protagonist story in doing so. It feels weirdly rare
Speaker 1: that that happens in the way that it does in
Speaker 1: this movie deeply, so I hadn't like already in a
Speaker 1: series of things that I hadn't quite seen anything like.
Speaker 1: It was yet another one, and especially that in her
Speaker 1: her dynamic with her roommate is another one that I
Speaker 1: keep bringing up American Psycho. But like, I love it
Speaker 1: when women shoot men the way men shoot women because
Speaker 1: it feels so fucking rare that you're just like I
Speaker 1: have stumbled upon something, because you never see them shot
Speaker 1: in like the same like slow pan down examinations, and
Speaker 1: like the best part is every time you watch Justine
Speaker 1: watching him, she looks like Jack Torrence in the Shining. Yeah,
Speaker 1: She's got like eyes low and she's just like kind
Speaker 1: of scoping him out and nose starts bleeding, yes, like
Speaker 1: very intently looking at him. And then like the possessiveness
Speaker 1: that she gets between her and her sister about him
Speaker 1: to where she doesn't even register any information. It's like,
Speaker 1: don't talk to him. I called him. It's mine now.
Speaker 1: Like it's always interesting when you get to see like
Speaker 1: the lens of objectivity moved in a different direction. Right, Oh,
Speaker 1: I just thought of this, And it might be because
Speaker 1: we talked about this also on the other episode we
Speaker 1: did with you recently, Vanessa, where we talked about the
Speaker 1: kill your Gaze trope. But I was like, oh, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, that does happen in this movie too, because
Speaker 1: even though Adrian and Justine have sex, he identifies as
Speaker 1: gay and he like tells her several times. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he's kind of, as far as I could tell, he's
Speaker 1: the only identifiably queer character in the movie with any
Speaker 1: kind of narrative significance. And he also dies at the end,
Speaker 1: so part of it fell up very like. I watched
Speaker 1: that scene a few times, and then the thing that
Speaker 1: I found the most interesting about it is it made
Speaker 1: me think about puberty and that very scary moment that
Speaker 1: I think everyone has either like experienced or is afraid
Speaker 1: to admit that they've experienced, in which they turned someone
Speaker 1: into an into not not even object, into a tool
Speaker 1: for exploration and don't really give any regard to like
Speaker 1: how that person is affected by that, to where it's
Speaker 1: just like, I'm gonna engage in something really intense with
Speaker 1: you and then I'm going to disappear completely, Because that
Speaker 1: was my intent the entire time, and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to see what that felt like, or like I want
Speaker 1: you because I decided I want you even though he's
Speaker 1: mostly just the one time he was into it was
Speaker 1: because he was like kind of fucked up in horny
Speaker 1: and like not into her the entire time, but like
Speaker 1: she decided that he was something that she wanted, so
Speaker 1: she was going to take it anyway. And it's this
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable but human look into like the inherent selfishness
Speaker 1: that springs up during puberty that we kind of either
Speaker 1: learn to reel in or let it spin out of
Speaker 1: control in terrifying ways and become awful adults. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great way to put it. Yeah, I I I
Speaker 1: had that sort of bookmarked as just something that I
Speaker 1: wanted to to talk about because yeah, Adrian is the
Speaker 1: only identifiably queer character. I do feel like the writing
Speaker 1: takes care to tell us who he is. He certainly
Speaker 1: has a lot like his His impact on the plot
Speaker 1: extends beyond his sexuality by a lot, because he's, you know,
Speaker 1: to an extent, the only person who is like quote
Speaker 1: unquote onto her and like but also very much cares
Speaker 1: about her and is trying Like, Yeah, I was kind
Speaker 1: of I was kind of stuck on his character because
Speaker 1: it didn't feel like a cut and dry, kill your
Speaker 1: gaze trope. But he is certainly I mean, he is
Speaker 1: a queer character who is dead by the end of
Speaker 1: the movie. Yeah, it's It's definitely one where like I
Speaker 1: keep wondering to myself, like is it deliberate? Is it deliberate?
Speaker 1: And what is that deliberate action trying to say, because
Speaker 1: there's so many elements to this that are like thoughtful
Speaker 1: enough that I'm like, either this was like something included
Speaker 1: and that was just like the trajectory for him, or
Speaker 1: there was a deliberate reason for that, right. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I also had I was just like I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly what the intent is here. Nothing
Speaker 1: struck me as so like, oh my god, I can't
Speaker 1: believe the director made this choice and I'm offended by
Speaker 1: it or anything like that. It was more just like,
Speaker 1: oh I did notice that, but it's quizzical. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just it's like I wonder how much yeah, like like
Speaker 1: you're saying that, how much thought and like what the
Speaker 1: decision making was behind that? Because I felt like ultimately
Speaker 1: what was important about Audreyan's character was that he which
Speaker 1: we see in that awful scene where Justine realizes that
Speaker 1: he's dead and he's not just her the person closest
Speaker 1: to her who isn't accountable, that's like laying next to her.
Speaker 1: And it felt like the most impactful thing about his
Speaker 1: character was that he was someone who was close to her,
Speaker 1: who gave a ship about her and cared about her.
Speaker 1: And it felt it felt like the significance of his
Speaker 1: character was, you know, just unrelated to his identity. It
Speaker 1: was like, this is the person who matters to me
Speaker 1: the most, who is not my family and accountable, like
Speaker 1: and so you feel you like feel that loss when
Speaker 1: she and also the I mean the performance from um
Speaker 1: Garant Marallier very French, very French, but like her performance
Speaker 1: in that scene I thought was just so like gut wrenching,
Speaker 1: lee awful when you realize that he's dead and she
Speaker 1: thinks that she's done it and like all this ship
Speaker 1: and yeah, I just I I ended that character's arc
Speaker 1: with with just question marks. I don't know, I think
Speaker 1: this could be. This is just this is a new
Speaker 1: thought that I'm just having right now. But I've been
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what his character like reminds me
Speaker 1: of and what it echoes of, And it kind of
Speaker 1: reminds in terms of like when I've felt like that.
Speaker 1: He reminds me of any time I've told a man
Speaker 1: that I've been wholly uninterested in him, but I was
Speaker 1: kind to him, and that was a green light enough,
Speaker 1: Like it makes me think of every time I've been like,
Speaker 1: there is no sexual appeal here. You're a friend and
Speaker 1: roommate or you're like schoolmate or co worker that I'm
Speaker 1: kind of nice too, but like me looking out for
Speaker 1: you no matter how much I say I'm not interested
Speaker 1: in you, is the green light to be like, but
Speaker 1: we're into each other, right, you mean as far as
Speaker 1: like how Justine, Like she's the one who's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've I've got this green Is that we mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I noticed, like even after they have sex, he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm fucking gay, and even before that, everyone else is
Speaker 1: telling her like she knew that, and she knew that,
Speaker 1: and everyone else is telling her like, this will not
Speaker 1: end the way you wanted to with him, like because
Speaker 1: she looks at him very like dreamy eyed, and even
Speaker 1: when he first pulls her into the bathroom, he has
Speaker 1: made it so fucking clear I am gay. I do
Speaker 1: not want you this way. We are friends, but when
Speaker 1: he first pulls into the bathroom, he's trying to show
Speaker 1: her a video of her on the phone that like
Speaker 1: uncomfortable video, but she literally looks at him and smiles
Speaker 1: and even raises an eyebrow and is like what are
Speaker 1: you doing and is like, oh, maybe he's trying again.
Speaker 1: And it's like he has made it so clear to
Speaker 1: you that he's not into you, but she's still like
Speaker 1: maybe now. The entire time also just emblematic of the
Speaker 1: confusing nature of coming of age sexually and how we
Speaker 1: like to say, as someone who has been in love
Speaker 1: with a gay man before, you're just like, oh, yea, no,
Speaker 1: he told you. He told you, Like stop stop. I've
Speaker 1: definitely had like a boyfriend who's been like I'm fucking gay,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, does this mean we're not going to prom?
Speaker 1: And it's not registering. Oh, I'm glad. That's such a
Speaker 1: universal experience. Ye yeah, And and that is like that
Speaker 1: is a I mean, I guess even that conversation alone
Speaker 1: is like that is such a messy aspect of being
Speaker 1: for both of them, of like being a young person
Speaker 1: figuring your sexuality out and like Adrian does have it
Speaker 1: figured out and he's clear, and also like Justine is
Speaker 1: like but like you know, and it's I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean again, I want to know what our our
Speaker 1: listeners think is it's a pretty like gutsy dynamic for
Speaker 1: the writer to take on because it's I mean, just
Speaker 1: based on the last two minutes of discussion, it is
Speaker 1: like certainly a thing that happens and exists and can
Speaker 1: be confusing to navigate, you know, like some whatever. Like
Speaker 1: in the situation, in my personal experience, we were able
Speaker 1: to get through it. It's all good, We're still friends,
Speaker 1: it's like fine. And then other situations and differently, it's
Speaker 1: a real life dynamic that exists, but it's not one
Speaker 1: that I've seen attempted in movies very often, and I
Speaker 1: kind of get why because it's a like risky, messy
Speaker 1: thing to attempt in a story. It's a fucking mine
Speaker 1: field that doesn't really have enough discussion or examination to
Speaker 1: like figure out how to approach and what those dynamics are.
Speaker 1: Because I can I feel like anyone that's ever been
Speaker 1: in that situation, it's like the first time you truly
Speaker 1: realize what a big spectrum gender and sexuality is to
Speaker 1: where you're just like, I don't know where my rigidity
Speaker 1: is and I'm still figuring it out and maybe it's
Speaker 1: like kind of solidly somewhere, but I'm still not sure,
Speaker 1: and the language doesn't exist for it, and my birds
Speaker 1: in the Bees conversation is so heteronormative and for baby
Speaker 1: making that I have literally no guide for this. Like
Speaker 1: I remember sitting down with my mother and being like,
Speaker 1: were you at all prepared for two of your daughters
Speaker 1: to be queer when you're giving us the sex talk?
Speaker 1: And she's like, I just learned about dental damns from
Speaker 1: your thirty three year old sister a year ago. I
Speaker 1: was not fucking ready for any of that. Nothing prepared
Speaker 1: me for it. And so when that's like one of
Speaker 1: your first formative romances and society isn't advanced enough to
Speaker 1: help you navigate it, everyone is messy and everyone makes
Speaker 1: the wrong choice. Well, that's what's so cool to me
Speaker 1: about this movie, or at least one of the things
Speaker 1: where the character that we are watching and identifying with
Speaker 1: because she's the protagonist, is someone who is like fucking
Speaker 1: up a lot and like making mistakes and like not
Speaker 1: behaving very well to the point where she's eating people.
Speaker 1: But this movie has this rooting for a cannibal, Like
Speaker 1: that's like the writing if you, as a writer can
Speaker 1: get us to root for a cannibal like your good
Speaker 1: writer period, especially because like the cannibalism can easily be
Speaker 1: seen as an allegory for things that are perhaps more
Speaker 1: relatable to your average person who isn't engaging in cannibalism, where,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people have discussed how this
Speaker 1: movie is allegorical for, you know, just a coming of age,
Speaker 1: sexual awakening, just the kind of general idea of discovering
Speaker 1: your identity. Some people are even like it's about experimenting
Speaker 1: with drugs, probably other things that you could see it
Speaker 1: as an allegory for. To me, the main one was
Speaker 1: like the coming into your own as a sexual person,
Speaker 1: and like starting to mature sexually and the whole kind
Speaker 1: of like sexual metaphor, where that is a messy thing
Speaker 1: to now the gate as basically any person, especially because
Speaker 1: of the culture we live in and how we are
Speaker 1: all products of our environments and how culture does not
Speaker 1: adequately prepare really anyone to especially like when we were
Speaker 1: coming of age sexually and everyone in generations before us like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the boomers were not read. I mean, it's like van Efa,
Speaker 1: you just like said it very cular. It's like the
Speaker 1: boomers were not ready, right, So it's just yah, it's
Speaker 1: a very interesting thing to explore. So it's not as
Speaker 1: though like the movies and being like the movie, we're
Speaker 1: not like, oh wow, look at Justine. What a model character,
Speaker 1: what a role model I can look up to kind
Speaker 1: of thing in that way. But it's more just like,
Speaker 1: let's examine how messy and complicated and often confusing and
Speaker 1: sometimes shameful this processes for everybody, and especially because again
Speaker 1: our culture where sex is still kind of taboo, especially
Speaker 1: in certain contexts, and rape culture is still pervasive, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people's understanding of consent is still pretty murky,
Speaker 1: and there's very little emphasis on female pleasure and women's
Speaker 1: sexual autonomy, and any sex that isn't sis heterosex has
Speaker 1: historically been demonized, and people are shamed for having kinks
Speaker 1: and just like all this stuff that makes navigating your
Speaker 1: own sexuality a difficult and again messy thing that again
Speaker 1: a lot of people are conditioned to feel shame about,
Speaker 1: and cultural expectations make it so a lot of people,
Speaker 1: like we see Justine doing in the movie, funk up
Speaker 1: and make mistakes and push other people's boundaries and comfort levels.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so I just think that it's really cool
Speaker 1: that this movie explores this awakening process for this young
Speaker 1: woman and that you can see it in all these
Speaker 1: allegorical and symbolic ways. And yeah, I mean the idea
Speaker 1: of shame where I was just thinking about, like I
Speaker 1: was trying to just like think through I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: why cannibalism for this story specifically? And I feel like
Speaker 1: shame is the key there where there's so few things
Speaker 1: that to everyone essentially is like you would be ashamed
Speaker 1: if you ate another person, Like that would be a
Speaker 1: universal feeling of shame minus a very very very very
Speaker 1: very small fraction of people who exist. And I I
Speaker 1: liked how it's like not liked. I mean, it's very
Speaker 1: difficult to watch, but how it in the context of
Speaker 1: a coming of age story. It's like, how can you
Speaker 1: make anyone watching this movie if the feeling of shame
Speaker 1: And it's like, oh yeah, like evoking the feeling of
Speaker 1: doing the most shameful thing that no person is ever
Speaker 1: supposed to do. Of course that's going to like bring
Speaker 1: a universality to this character. That is like such a
Speaker 1: smart use of the idea of cannibalism. Like it's just
Speaker 1: so good. It's so smart because it's one of like
Speaker 1: the last taboos. It's one of like the last things
Speaker 1: that's like we don't talk about this, and if we do,
Speaker 1: like the person choice, we like looked at a certain
Speaker 1: type of way, like sex is far from like the
Speaker 1: last one, but it certainly still is one. And by
Speaker 1: like merging the two and like piggy backing it together,
Speaker 1: you end up I was going to say odd, but
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say odd. Um, it's fucking beautiful
Speaker 1: that a movie about cannibalism makes me like feel a
Speaker 1: little bit more in awe of humanity by the end
Speaker 1: of it, towards like, oh, this is such a collective
Speaker 1: experience we pretend isn't real, that we're all like completely
Speaker 1: united by that by the end of it, I'm just
Speaker 1: like humans or something else. I would recommend if you
Speaker 1: haven't already read it. Vanessa and listeners. Um. There's a
Speaker 1: Guardian interview with the director Julia Duquneau entitled Cannibalism is
Speaker 1: Part of humanity because she rocks this is what her
Speaker 1: whole thing. She's like, Yeah, I made this movie because like,
Speaker 1: cannibalism is extremely a part of humanity, and that's what
Speaker 1: I'm going for with this movie. I desperately want to
Speaker 1: know her thoughts on like meat consumption and farming now
Speaker 1: that is I would be hilarious if she is like
Speaker 1: like militant vegan right where she's like, it's not, We're
Speaker 1: not that far from it. Like, I desperately want to
Speaker 1: know where she thinks, because she shows it in the
Speaker 1: movie as well, Like where do those lines blur for her? Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break and then we will come
Speaker 1: right back and we're back. There are two other things
Speaker 1: that stuck out to me about this movie. I guess
Speaker 1: I'll go for the more obscure one first. And maybe
Speaker 1: this is like it's like hit for me personally. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but the ending of the movie took me
Speaker 1: off guard plot wise, because it is such a good
Speaker 1: ending to the movie to be like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: like the idea that it's like this isn't your specifically's fault.
Speaker 1: This is something that was passed down to you, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure like you can make the argument for like
Speaker 1: a generation, like it's a generational trauma in this family
Speaker 1: that women eat people um or or even just the
Speaker 1: offspring this bloodline eats people. We don't know, because the
Speaker 1: two siblings in this family are are girls. It could
Speaker 1: it could be you don't know, but it is the
Speaker 1: generational inherited trauma. And so in a way, it's like
Speaker 1: Justine can feel relief that it's like this is not
Speaker 1: an individual shame or flaw. It is coming from somewhere.
Speaker 1: There's a context for it. And I thought that was cool.
Speaker 1: But then also the idea of like the last line
Speaker 1: of the movie is her father basically saying, but you're smart,
Speaker 1: you'll figure it out. And so it's like, now there's
Speaker 1: this context for this huge like shame and humiliation and
Speaker 1: sadness in her life, and she's also being told by
Speaker 1: the person providing that context, who she loves and trusts,
Speaker 1: good fucking luck. Like you know, I just thought that
Speaker 1: was such a just again, just like a very human
Speaker 1: frustration and experience to be like, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: our whole family is fucked up. But like, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, like good luck, hope you figure that out,
Speaker 1: Like it I just I loved it. Maybe it'll be you, right, Like,
Speaker 1: maybe you'll be the one to resolve general like who
Speaker 1: knows how far back this goes, like you would assume
Speaker 1: further and he's like, no, Justine, you're a smart kid,
Speaker 1: good luck whatever, brutle. It made me think of every
Speaker 1: time an older cousin would like, note something funked up
Speaker 1: in our family and then be like, but we're betting
Speaker 1: on you, kid, And I'm like, that's a lot of
Speaker 1: weird bloodlines to depend on me to rectify. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure. You're like, oh, yeah, I've got like
Speaker 1: taking a Like it just felt so like in and
Speaker 1: out and in of like, oh, this is a generational issue,
Speaker 1: it's not an individual problem. But then her dad is
Speaker 1: also taking the extra step to make it an individual
Speaker 1: problem for her and say so you should probably figure
Speaker 1: this out or this is just going to keep happening.
Speaker 1: It's such a I don't know, It's like every family
Speaker 1: has their version of whatever that is. It's also like
Speaker 1: this terrifying moment when you find out this very intimate
Speaker 1: thing about like your parents relationship dynamic because like her
Speaker 1: mom is so aloof the entire time that I'm sure
Speaker 1: in her mind that she's like the colder one that
Speaker 1: leaves a lot of things up to Dad, and then
Speaker 1: finding out that Dad is just kind of a midnight
Speaker 1: snack for mom sometimes, Like, yeah, it's that moment where
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, there's just stuff behind the curtains the
Speaker 1: entire time that I haven't been privy too because everyone
Speaker 1: decided that I couldn't handle it, right, Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of interesting the choice to really
Speaker 1: not include her mom very much in the movie and
Speaker 1: then the reveal it comes from the dad, and like
Speaker 1: there's another earlier conversation where she talks to her dad
Speaker 1: outside the hospital after she's eating her sister's finger, and
Speaker 1: I guess that like more effectively sets up this big
Speaker 1: reveal that it's like and it was her mother who
Speaker 1: is responded like she passed down the annibulism gene whatever.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, it definitely made the reveal more shocking
Speaker 1: because I guess we don't don't really know that much
Speaker 1: about her mom, if anything, so at first I was
Speaker 1: sort of like, what is that? But then also it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's good. I mean they have to withhold that from you.
Speaker 1: And then in red and then when you walk it
Speaker 1: back the second time, you're like, oh, that was like
Speaker 1: absolutely the right choice and you understand it. Watching a
Speaker 1: second time, it makes me want a like prequel to
Speaker 1: Raw that we where we focus on her mom and like,
Speaker 1: I want to focus on her mom. And I'm also
Speaker 1: like fascinated by the dad because I feel like the
Speaker 1: dad could be such a fascinating exploration into like kink
Speaker 1: as well to where it's like what what in him?
Speaker 1: That like? Because he was like, I pursued her and
Speaker 1: then we finally kissed, and then you find out that
Speaker 1: that scar on his lip came from their first kiss
Speaker 1: in which she bit him. But he was like I
Speaker 1: want more. I know this, and I want more and
Speaker 1: I want to be around for more. So I'm like
Speaker 1: what in him was like not only like this is
Speaker 1: something that I can like love her in spite of it.
Speaker 1: To have a relationship that long and have it be
Speaker 1: like something that happened that young and adolescents, it can't
Speaker 1: be in spite of He's there has to be an
Speaker 1: additional appeal. He's got to be into it. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: You're not in a relationship for decades for nothing. Getting
Speaker 1: eaten actively eaten by your spouse if you're not kind
Speaker 1: of like this is hot, right, Another just like familial
Speaker 1: relationship thing I wanted to talk about was the relationship
Speaker 1: between the two sisters. Yes, yes, that was the other thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where I'm realizing like how rare it is to see
Speaker 1: a relationship dynamic between two sisters be at the center
Speaker 1: of a movie. And it was just like, first, just
Speaker 1: like refreshing to se you that because of the lack
Speaker 1: of that relationship dynamic that we don't get that much
Speaker 1: of um. And then on top of that, I just
Speaker 1: thought it was really well written. It felt like a
Speaker 1: very authentic dynamic to me, where sometimes we see them
Speaker 1: getting along and bonding and getting closer, and then other
Speaker 1: times we see that they're pissing each other off. The
Speaker 1: like kind of older sister thing of like her being
Speaker 1: overly critical of her younger sister is something that like
Speaker 1: I very tragically identified with because I'm like, oops, this
Speaker 1: reminds me of of all the times that I was
Speaker 1: really critical and mean to my younger sister. Sorry a
Speaker 1: movie too, yes, like because it really like it's I
Speaker 1: this again felt like I God, damnit, Roger Ebert, Like
Speaker 1: I feel like it connects back to what you were
Speaker 1: saying earlier than I of like the specificity of this
Speaker 1: is a relationship between sisters, and the fact that it
Speaker 1: doesn't shy away in vague ify that relationship strengthens the
Speaker 1: universal connection that people are going to take away from it,
Speaker 1: because I was thinking about my little brother when I
Speaker 1: was watching this, and it was like, well, obviously, like
Speaker 1: we're not you know, like both like let's pe together
Speaker 1: because that's just not what our relationship is. But but
Speaker 1: the dynamics and the you know, fierce loyalty that many
Speaker 1: people feel towards their siblings and the like that's such
Speaker 1: a like Justine fox up so bad and Alex welcomes
Speaker 1: her back and Alex murders just a best friend, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's an individual journey of can I forgive
Speaker 1: and forget? But like the whole like concept of like
Speaker 1: the thing that binds them and the reason that they're
Speaker 1: fucking up is this generational problem that they both have.
Speaker 1: And they're both individuals, they have different personalities, they have
Speaker 1: this very sibling e dynamic, but they're kind of like
Speaker 1: haunted by this same generational issue in different ways. And
Speaker 1: it seems like that's that, and also like the just
Speaker 1: intense bond that a lot of siblings have is what
Speaker 1: makes them able to forgive each other and navigate things.
Speaker 1: I just I thought it was so again, just like
Speaker 1: making cannibalism, the generational trauma is such a weird, cool
Speaker 1: creative decision right down to like I really love the
Speaker 1: detail of when they're saying bye to each other, when
Speaker 1: Alex is in jail and Alex flips off Justine and
Speaker 1: you see the stump of her finger and then Justine
Speaker 1: like pushes the scar like against the window, and it's
Speaker 1: so intimate, and then they're like having this little interaction
Speaker 1: even if it's like uncomfortable and the rely eving, but
Speaker 1: also that they're deliberately like showing each other like you
Speaker 1: did this to me, ha ha. That I think only
Speaker 1: exists the amount of times I've like waxed poetic with
Speaker 1: my brother about the like dangerous ship that they used
Speaker 1: to do with my tiny young body because they were
Speaker 1: like ten years older than me, and they would like
Speaker 1: stuff me into toy boxes and push me down the
Speaker 1: stairs or like let's go sledding. Oops, Vanessa slid into
Speaker 1: the road, and then now we're like ha, ha ha,
Speaker 1: you almost killed me, And I'm like, yeah, because we
Speaker 1: were weird children around each other. We're so fucked up,
Speaker 1: we like love each other fiercely and put each other
Speaker 1: through the wringer because like we're getting our baby brains
Speaker 1: cooked up into adult brains and then just acting out
Speaker 1: on each other because we in our heads default to
Speaker 1: like they're going to be there forever. They can't unsibling me,
Speaker 1: so they will be far more forgiving of my worst
Speaker 1: moments than anyone else. But instead that means we put
Speaker 1: each other through more hell than we put anyone else
Speaker 1: with the right, like, yeah, the the highs are higher,
Speaker 1: the lows are lower, and it's just so siblings, Like
Speaker 1: siblings are inherently fucked up in the way they treat
Speaker 1: each other throughout their lives. Like, show me a healthy
Speaker 1: sibling dynamic, you just like it doesn't exist, and then
Speaker 1: birth order makes hierarchy. Yeah, oh yeah, that's just built in,
Speaker 1: so you just have this little cast system coated into
Speaker 1: you in your house where it's just like, all right,
Speaker 1: Louise got cheerios before me, so that clearly means fuck me.
Speaker 1: I guess this is why I was just like God,
Speaker 1: the idea of parenting is so stressful because it's just
Speaker 1: a small, perceived slight that sends your children on a
Speaker 1: careening like freight train of emotional distress because it's like, well,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean it was and and the betrayals
Speaker 1: that Alex and Justine make to each other are severe.
Speaker 1: But again, I feel like it just like speaks to
Speaker 1: the writing of the movie that I never questioned why
Speaker 1: would they still defend each other in this situation? Like
Speaker 1: it's so obvious why they would. And it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that it's morally right or that it's but it's like,
Speaker 1: of course they're going to be there for each other.
Speaker 1: Who else are they going to talk to about this
Speaker 1: awful thing that exists in both of them? And who
Speaker 1: else do you have that kind of intense bond and
Speaker 1: loyalty and love for in their lot? Like it's it's them.
Speaker 1: So yeah. Again, It's like another thing that I feel
Speaker 1: like is not really explored in many movies this effectively. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, it's it's usually far more traveling pansy Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, wow.
Speaker 1: I love that as an adjective. Traveling panty, traveling pansy. Um,
Speaker 1: does anyone have anything else they want to talk about.
Speaker 1: I do want to say the soundtrack is amazing, great
Speaker 1: soundtrack rate, score, the music is incredible. I wanted to
Speaker 1: share a quote from Julia from this Guardian article slash
Speaker 1: interview that I referenced before, in which she says, quote,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to glamorize anything, especially with the girl's bodies.
Speaker 1: A body is a body, and every movie we see
Speaker 1: women have to be beautiful and fit or whatever the hell,
Speaker 1: and they have to fit a certain box. And no
Speaker 1: women fart, poop, pe burp. This is why you can
Speaker 1: relate to them, because they are not these heavenly creatures.
Speaker 1: They are real people with real feelings. And when they
Speaker 1: go down, they go down. This is something we don't
Speaker 1: see enough of. Always in movies, when people cry, they
Speaker 1: cry like this. And then apparently she uh, Julia mimes
Speaker 1: a sorrowful weep um saying like St Mary crying, We're
Speaker 1: all equals with our bodies. So fun golf. I love her,
Speaker 1: Oh my God, like that she wonderful. That said, like
Speaker 1: I wish that there was like more. It's it's interesting
Speaker 1: for a movie that acknowledges medical issues as it pertains
Speaker 1: to fatness in the size of your body. It is
Speaker 1: like still very very like generally white thin movie, which
Speaker 1: again I wonder what the because it seems like Julia
Speaker 1: Ducurno is very aware of these issues and very conscious
Speaker 1: that feels strongly about them. So I do under like
Speaker 1: kind of what the casting stuff is. It does seem
Speaker 1: like particularly with the lead, this is like a longstanding
Speaker 1: working relationship between the actress and the director. But I
Speaker 1: mean that was like kind of the only thing in
Speaker 1: this like the only thing in this movie that I
Speaker 1: was like, is this a France thing? Like, but there's
Speaker 1: diversity in France like that, it's not a France thing.
Speaker 1: So I was curious about that, and I'm I'm really
Speaker 1: curious to see more of what Julia Ducarno does and
Speaker 1: how she like what do you do after raw? Like
Speaker 1: that's get it get pregnant by a car? I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to see it. Is that what titan Nick is about?
Speaker 1: So the premise is a young girl who gets into
Speaker 1: a horrific car accident and instead of like you know,
Speaker 1: growing closer to her parents and seeking comfort there um,
Speaker 1: she has like this crazy scarner head and instead becomes
Speaker 1: obsessed with cars with a desire to romance them. Um
Speaker 1: becomes an erotic car dancer and gets pregnant by one
Speaker 1: and then breaks the law and has to run on
Speaker 1: the lamb by dressing up as a pre pubescent boy
Speaker 1: and convincing a man that she is his long lost son.
Speaker 1: Like she takes big swings and people love this movie.
Speaker 1: Like all the early reviews of this movie where like, Wow,
Speaker 1: she pulled it off. I'm like she did that? How
Speaker 1: that concept? Oh do you execute that? And here we
Speaker 1: are talking about a movie in which a girl plucks
Speaker 1: fat from a lip out of her teeth and eats it,
Speaker 1: and we're like, remember when we all got our periods?
Speaker 1: So now I'm like I have to see whatever this is. Right.
Speaker 1: By the way, the actor who plays Adrian is Arab, Yes,
Speaker 1: but I think he comply. I mean, it's not it's not.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's a completely white cast, but it
Speaker 1: is a close to whitecast. Yeah, that is true, but
Speaker 1: just wanted to acknowledge that. Yeah, does anyone have anything
Speaker 1: else to mention? I'm also sorry I'm on the Wikipedia
Speaker 1: because I've been trying to not spoil Titan Titane for myself,
Speaker 1: like even pre knowing we were doing raw for this episode.
Speaker 1: It just the premise was so intriguing to me. The
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't want to know anything, I just
Speaker 1: want to see it. But I'm on the Wikipedia page,
Speaker 1: so turn off the podcast. But Garant Marillier, who played Justine,
Speaker 1: is credited on the Wikipedia page for Titan as a
Speaker 1: character named Justine. What so this might be an expanded
Speaker 1: universe thing, like I don't know, the Chrono extended universe.
Speaker 1: How fucking cool would that be if this is like,
Speaker 1: oh my building out an outour freaky universe. Oh, I
Speaker 1: would be so excited. I'm very excited to see this movie. Now. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to like, but yeah, she's credited as
Speaker 1: Justine again. What I'm going to look out for that.
Speaker 1: I'm going to look out for that. That's so exciting.
Speaker 1: I'm very health Okay, So that was all I had
Speaker 1: to say about this movie. I love it so much.
Speaker 1: The movie, of course, passes the Bechdel test. Justine talks
Speaker 1: to Alex quite a lot, as well as to her mother,
Speaker 1: and many, if not most of those conversations past. They
Speaker 1: do talk about Audrean sometimes, but they're mostly talking about
Speaker 1: vet school and eating people cannibalism, so at a passes
Speaker 1: as far as our nipple scales zero to five nipples.
Speaker 1: Based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens um,
Speaker 1: I would give this like a four and a half.
Speaker 1: I think there's just like a few little things that
Speaker 1: pinned for me that we mentioned throughout the episode, But
Speaker 1: by and large, I appreciate a movie is not afraid
Speaker 1: to explore via cannibalism slash cannibalism as a metaphor, a
Speaker 1: movie that is not afraid to explore parts of her
Speaker 1: life and body and sexuality that feel extremely authentic to
Speaker 1: that experience, even if a lot of what she's doing
Speaker 1: is like fucking up and making mistakes and like being
Speaker 1: gross and like surprise, biting people and you know, stuff
Speaker 1: like that, Because even though that that's a new one, um,
Speaker 1: Because even though that behavior is not okay, and kissing
Speaker 1: and biting people without their consent and pushing people past
Speaker 1: their comfort level are all wrong, we relate to the
Speaker 1: humanity of her experience in a way that most movies
Speaker 1: don't even attempt to do or couldn't do, because they're
Speaker 1: made by people who simply don't understand. So it's just
Speaker 1: very refreshing too to watch a movie written and directed
Speaker 1: by a woman that is not afraid to explore the
Speaker 1: messier side of life. And cannibalis, Yeah, the messy side
Speaker 1: of cannibalism. That's a good that's a good elevator pitch
Speaker 1: for this as a like a rob com cannibalism, it
Speaker 1: gets messy. What a great tagline. Um. So yeah. I
Speaker 1: think that there's a lot of cool things happening in
Speaker 1: the movie as far as like what it's examining, and
Speaker 1: you know, different interpretations, as far as like symbolic allegorical stuff.
Speaker 1: And I think it's really cool. And I will give
Speaker 1: the movie four and a half nipples. I'll give uh
Speaker 1: one to Julia Ducarno, one to each Justine, Alex and
Speaker 1: their mother, and then I'll give my half nipple to
Speaker 1: the poor dog Quickie who had to be put down.
Speaker 1: I'm really sad about that, poor Quickie. I was sad
Speaker 1: about Quickie to forgot, although it led to one of
Speaker 1: my favorite interactions, which was her reading the text from
Speaker 1: Quickie and not even responding to the dog dying and
Speaker 1: immediately going, why does my sister have your number? Loved it.
Speaker 1: It's this movie is wonderful. Okay, I'll meet you at
Speaker 1: four and a half. It's like the rare one that
Speaker 1: it's like it extremely passes the vectil test, and it's
Speaker 1: also like very near a movie that is like I
Speaker 1: just would watch this a million times. I want to
Speaker 1: show this movie to everybody. I'm very excited to preach
Speaker 1: the gospel of Julia Ducarno. I wish, I mean, there
Speaker 1: are certain things that I just was like curious about
Speaker 1: I wish were explored a little more. I do wish
Speaker 1: that there was more diversity in terms of race and
Speaker 1: body in the movie. But this movie fucking rocks, Like
Speaker 1: it's just so good, and I feel like it's for
Speaker 1: so many reasons that we've described. I think it's so
Speaker 1: wonderful and cool and should not feel this rare or
Speaker 1: unique to find a woman at the center of a
Speaker 1: story who is very you know, specific in her experience,
Speaker 1: like in this, like it's very like she couldn't be
Speaker 1: anyone else but who she is. She's not a like,
Speaker 1: you know, focus tested, vague ified protagonists that I think
Speaker 1: we see very very often when we see female protagonists.
Speaker 1: Right now, I think that like it would be whatever
Speaker 1: however you feel about it, It's like it would be
Speaker 1: naive to say that Black Widow wasn't focused, tested to
Speaker 1: relate to as many people as hugely possible. This is
Speaker 1: a character who is who she is, but because of
Speaker 1: how skillful and thoughtful and risky and cool the writing is,
Speaker 1: anyone can put themselves in her place because what she's
Speaker 1: feeling is becoming an adult struggling with her relationship with
Speaker 1: her family, and like, we've all done eating a person
Speaker 1: here and there, so it's great. I just I'm so
Speaker 1: excited about this movie. I'm so happy that's in my
Speaker 1: life now. Four and a half nipples, I'm going to
Speaker 1: give all of them to Julia Ducarno. I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to see her next movie, Vanessa, what say you? I'm
Speaker 1: also going to do the four and a half because
Speaker 1: I love this movie. I love this movie and I
Speaker 1: am so happy that it exists and just exist as
Speaker 1: like a testament to like, why you want to diversify
Speaker 1: who's behind the lens because the stories are just more
Speaker 1: interesting and the perspectives are rare. The half star is
Speaker 1: for pretty much the same reasons as y'all, and that
Speaker 1: um I would like especially like to see both more
Speaker 1: diversity and body diversity, because like, if you're going to
Speaker 1: mention like a fat person and a fat person's plate,
Speaker 1: I'd like to see one. It's it's Chekhov's fat person
Speaker 1: at this point, like let let me, let me have one. Um.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's such a concise, well
Speaker 1: told story that doesn't really waste any time, but like
Speaker 1: luxuriate's where it needs to. And I love this movie
Speaker 1: and I love how specific and odd and real this
Speaker 1: character is, which, by the way, if that's the kind
Speaker 1: of character that interests you. On HBO, Max Soon is
Speaker 1: a movie called We're All Going to the World's Fair
Speaker 1: that has a teenage girl that is the closest to
Speaker 1: any teenager that I've ever felt familiarity with. I feel
Speaker 1: more like her than any like glistening hair teen and
Speaker 1: anything that's ever existed. And it's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: horror movies of last year. Um I literally cried because
Speaker 1: I was just so excited at something like it existed.
Speaker 1: And that's how I felt the first time I saw
Speaker 1: ras so like definitely for a half stars. Yes, love it. Vanessa,
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us truly, Fripple, thank you for
Speaker 1: bringing us one of our new favorite movies. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I love being on here. Yell are amazing. You are
Speaker 1: tell us where people can check out your stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: you can find me. I've recently changed my Twitter handles,
Speaker 1: so you can find me under An E. S. S.
Speaker 1: Guerrero on Twitter and S and S. Guerrero on Instagram,
Speaker 1: and starting October you can find me on shutters Behind
Speaker 1: the Monsters. Um, yeah, I think us about it. Amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you again for being here. Come back anytime. Oh
Speaker 1: I have a podcast. Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I was like both like, wait, hold on, I'm literally
Speaker 1: about it. Edit right now. Um, I have a podcast.
Speaker 1: It's called Kicking and Screaming. It's you can find it
Speaker 1: under kick Screen Pod and it's where I specifically talk
Speaker 1: about horror and martial arts because they're my two favorite
Speaker 1: genres and I think they're very frequently discredited and are
Speaker 1: also one of the few industries in which marginalized people
Speaker 1: can get their foot in the door. So I love
Speaker 1: talking about it and if you like about those like
Speaker 1: those genres, definitely check it out when you get a chance. Yes. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram. At Bechtel
Speaker 1: Cast you can subscribe to our Matreon at Patreon dot
Speaker 1: com slash Bechtel Cast where you get to bonus episodes
Speaker 1: every month plus access to the back catalog, and that
Speaker 1: is five dollars a month. You can also get our
Speaker 1: merch on t public dot com. At t public dot com,
Speaker 1: slash the beck Doel Cast for all of your merchandising needs.
Speaker 1: And if we don't see you on the merch store,
Speaker 1: well we're going to eat you. Yeah bye,