In “Alpha” by Julia Ducournau, there is only the transformation of Tahar Rahim who surprised us

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Tahar Rahim metamorphosed to play a heroinomaniac in “Alpha” by Julia Ducournau.

Cinema outing – She had turned her stomachs with Grave Then shocked with Titanium. Nevertheless, So inevitably, by going to see the new film of French director Julia Ducournau, we expected to be stirred. Furthermore, But Alpha We left us in a marble, except for the extreme physical transformation of Tahar Rahim.

The film. However, left without prices of the last Cannes Film Festival, takes place in France in the 90s while a mysterious virus scares the population. However, Alpha (Mélissa Boros) is 13 years old and lives alone with her mother doctor, played by a moving “alpha” julia ducournau, there only golshifteh farahani. Consequently, During an alcoholic evening, she gets an A A on the arm, by an unknown needle not necessarily sterilized.

There follows the panic of having been infected. For example, the anxiety of waiting for the results of the tests, and especially the rejection of her classmates who make her a pariah. Similarly, This virus has no name in the film but has everything of HIV: blood transmission. However, unprotected sex and symptoms similar to AIDS (tremors, brown spots that appear on the skin).

Tahar Rahim Unrecognizable – "alpha" julia ducournau, there only

Unsurprisingly, Julia Ducournau pushes the cursor further. This virus gradually gnaws at the patients to transform them into stone, smooth and hard. On the part of the director of the French gore (the scenes of cannibalism in Grave had caused discomfort. vomiting in some spectators in 2017), we expected to be shocked.

But these marble bodies are more beautiful than afraid. and apart from a small pool of blood in a swimming pool, not enough to close their eyes during the film, even for sensitive souls. The real horror is played out elsewhere: it is the spiral of addiction. Shortly after her tattoo, Alpha discovers that she has an uncle, Amin, with whom she must now share her room.

It is Tahar Rahim who embodies him and his physical transformation makes him cadaveric, almost unrecognizable. The actor is extremely thin, emaciated face, crazy gaze and trembling body. Because Amin, heroinomaniac, is also infected with the virus, because of the equipment used to take drugs. Despite his sister’s attempts to help him detoxify himself. we are witnessing many scenes in which he consumes, sometimes going as far as overdose. And he is not the only one.

Horror is not where we expect it

Without there to be of the needles. the scenes of heroinomaniacs in full fixed in the stairwells have marked us more than the pebble bodies, motionless and helpless on their hospital bed. Because if Tahar Rahim is also scary, it is because he draws the faithful portrait of a very real tragedy.

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The young actress Melissa Boros in the mysterious “red wind” of the film “Alpha”.

Golshifteh Farahani embodies the human weight carried by the medical profession in the face of these two ills. She is in turn a doctor who treats the sick. is not afraid to touch them, then sister who injects naloxone to revive her brother addict, sometimes against her will. We would have preferred that Julia Duke from the sad realism. widens a little more the purpose of addiction and trauma for loved ones.

But the film gets bogged down with temporal curls that mix, and plans certainly aesthetic but incomprehensible. This is the case with the “red wind”. a wave of ocher dust that covers the city where Amin and his “alpha” julia ducournau, there only sister grew up. Demon, symptom or metaphor, we will never know. In any case, this wind is not enough to take us.