Turn to Stone: Ducournau Hits a Wall with Disease Allegory
“Death is the cure for all illness,” wrote English writer Thomas Browne, which is a sentiment one can apply to Alpha, the third film from budding body horror extraordinaire Julia Ducournau—for the end credits at last release one from its tightly wound, nonsensical battering. Ducournau’s Palme d’Or winning Titane (read review) was destined to be a hard act to follow, and the anxiety to provide a similar sense of howling wonder is apparent in almost every aspect of a fragmented allegory about diseases, both social and physical. An ambiguously troubled teen gets a tattoo while drunk at a party, an event which sends both herself and her painstakingly empathetic mother into an immediate psychotic break.… Read the rest
A good man is hard to find, and if one were to be found, he’s likely wet behind the ears. So begins a retrospective parable in Two Prosecutors, the first narrative feature from perennial documentarian