By John Corrado
Alpha is the third feature from French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, whose previous films Raw and Titane both shocked and repulsed audiences while drawing critical acclaim.
For Ducournau to follow up a film as thrilling and visionary as her sophomore feature Titane was always going to be a nearly impossible task, especially after it was awarded the Palme d’Or by Spike Lee’s jury in 2021.
Ducournau’s latest is many things; a sprawling, 1980s-set coming-of-age movie, an AIDS metaphor, a sombre take on the zombie genre, and a way for her to process childhood trauma.
It’s almost no wonder this one received a much more confused and even chilly reaction at last year’s Cannes, and is only being released now, nearly a year later. But initial critical responses are rarely the final arbiter of artistic merit and value.
To be sure, Alpha is an ambitious film, one that is laden with ideas and metaphorical touches that don’t all feel equally fleshed out, at least on first viewing. But Ducournau is a filmmaker capable of delivering haunting sequences, her disturbing imagery crafted with a sort of visual poetry, and Alpha is a work of value, even if its impact is not as immediate as that of Titane.
The film is named for Alpha (Mélissa Boros), a 13-year-old girl growing up with her single mother Maman (Golshifteh Farahani) in France. There is a mysterious blood-borne illness that is making people sick and causing them to waste away and die in hospital. Ducournau’s HIV metaphor couldn’t be more obvious, but this obviousness could be explained as the way a kid might’ve experienced the confusion and fear of the AIDS epidemic happening around them.
The story’s inciting incident involves Alpha getting the letter A tattooed on her arm at a party by a classmate. This leads to fears that she has become infected with this illness by the needle, which makes her even more of a social pariah at her school. The choice of letter suggests Ducournau is drawing inspiration from The Scarlet Letter as well.
The film also explores Alpha’s complicated relationship with her uncle Amin (Tahar Rahim), a heroin addict who has struggled to get clean. Rahim’s stirring performance as a dangerously ill junkie is one of the standout aspects of the film, bringing notes of sympathy to his portrayal of a very troubled character. Boros is also very good in the lead, with Ducournau drawing impressive work from her adolescent star in a demanding role.
Like with her previous films, Ducournau works in elements of squeamish body horror, but within a much more grounded framework. This includes impressive makeup work of the uniquely decaying bodies. The film’s aesthetic is purposefully off-putting, with the grey, washed out cinematography by Ruben Impens (Raw, Titane) making everyone look pale and sickly. It’s an intentional stylistic choice; as much as there is a real virus, there’s also a collective panic around not knowing who is infected.
There are a lot of metaphors going on here, and the film takes its time at 128 minutes. It can be hard to fully get a handle on a work as personal and esoteric as Alpha, with elements that feel like they mean something personal to Ducournau and can only be interpreted by her alone. It’s as if we are watching traumatic memories from her childhood reimagined through her genre filmmaking lens.
But the slow-burn pace, and any initial confusion over what Ducournau is trying to do with the narrative, eventually gives way to something messy yet emotional. The film culminates in a visually striking finale that delivers the devastating payoff. This a challenging and depressing but ultimately thematically rewarding watch, and one that already seems destined for critical reappraisal.
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