For a feminist reading of Julia Ducournau's Grave

Before receiving the Palme d'Or for her second long feature film Titane (2021), Femis-educated, punk-looking, thirty-something director Julia Ducournau disrupted French cinema and the Horror genre with Grave (2016), awarded the Critics prize at Cannes. Grave features high-school graduate Justine as she undergoes hazing at the veterinary school her sister Alex/ia attends. Strict vegetarian Justine's values and sense of ethics are shattered by the forced ingestion of a raw rabbit kidney. A coming-of-age story, Grave depicts Justine's struggle with cannibalistic urges and her growth as an individual. This article argues that what makes Justine monstrous is the systemic 'carno-sexist' boys club she lives in-representative of our society-and that uses hazing as a form of conditioning to a system that she rebels against. With Grave, Ducournau transgresses and reframes the cannibal cinematic subgenre and advocates a compassionate world that only an active rebellion against alienating categories, practices, rules, and laws can achieve.