Alpha Is a Striking Mess of a Movie

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The quote attributed to Coco Chanel about removing one item before leaving the house might not be authentic, but I wish director Julia Ducournau would consider this approach for her work. For instance, in her movies like “Titane,” is it necessary for a character with a car accident-induced metal plate in her skull and an unusual fascination with automobiles to also be a serial killer? Does the story of a 13-year-old girl’s fear of AIDS have to involve characters turning into stone due to their illness?

Ducournau made a splash with her 2016 debut, “Raw,”, a raw and powerful coming-of-age film that thrived on the tension between its various elements – cannibalism, sexual awakening, sibling rivalry, and veterinary school hazing. While these aspects didn’t always align perfectly, it added to the film’s charm. However, in her more recent works like “Titane“, which won her the Palme d’Or in 2021, the abundance of striking visuals and ideas about gender, bodies, and violence seemed to overwhelm the narrative.

I don’t mean to criticize Ducournau’s work as excessive, as that could be misunderstood as a critique of her use of body horror. Instead, her recent films seem overburdened with too much, making it challenging to discern their thematic core beneath the layers of added elements.

In the movie “Alpha,” the central theme revolves around the turmoil of attempting to rescue someone from their self-destructive path, as portrayed by Tahar Rahim’s character, Uncle Alpha (Mélissa Boros plays 13-year-old Alpha with a mature demeanor). When Alpha was previously in her life, she was merely a child marking the tracks of his addiction on his arm with a marker. Alpha resides with her mother, a doctor who works at a hospital and in their home office, growing increasingly frustrated by her daughter’s adolescent misconduct.

At a party, Alpha gets a stick-and-poke tattoo of an ‘A’ on her arm, causing her mother to worry about the sterility of the equipment used. Fearing a new, deadly virus, she rushes Alpha for testing. It’s the 90s, and this virus has been causing panic, illness, and death in an uneducated populace about its transmission. The afflicted cough up dust, gradually transforming into what resembles marble statues, their skin hardening and cracking along their veins, making each step heavy.

While this could be seen as a metaphor for AIDS, it more accurately represents AIDS in all aspects except the fantastical symptoms – spread through sexual contact and needles, it seems to eventually claim the life of everyone infected with it and before that, it ostracizes those who have it.

When Alpha might have been exposed to something dangerous, her mother gets worried and Amin, who looks troubled with drug addiction, appears at their apartment. Despite her mother’s belief that he has a right to be there, Alpha is scared of him. However, Amin offers Alpha companionship that she rarely gets, especially after people at school start avoiding her due to fear of contagion. The movie uses warmer tones to show flashbacks revealing the relationship between Amin and Alpha’s mother, as well as their place in the tight-knit family. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t manage to connect all its ideas into a cohesive whole, possibly because the director is trying to handle too many aspects at once.

The film, in particular, explores the complex issues of contagion and substance abuse without fully exploring either aspect. The portrayal of the virus in Alpha is symbolic and unsettling, transforming the deceased into statues that appear to be suffering. However, it also serves as a critique on societal rejection towards infected individuals, without delving into how this mirrors real-world situations where the virus was used against vulnerable groups. The story revolves around Alpha being ostracized by her peers due to potential contagion and Amin’s struggle with heroin addiction because death from the virus is worse. This dynamic is unbalanced, but could be more equitable if the narrative focused on the conflicting and emotional struggles of Alpha’s mother, who is trying to protect her child while keeping her brother alive, instead of Alpha herself, who spends most of the movie solving the mystery surrounding her uncle. The visual storytelling in Alpha showcases Ducournau’s talent for evocative imagery and unique compositions, but it hints that she might benefit from establishing clearer boundaries to challenge.

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2025-05-21 21:54