Julia Ducournau's 'Alpha' film fuelled by 'the spread of fear'

LONDON: French filmmaker Julia Ducournau channelled her own emotions and collective trauma for her new drama “Alpha”.

Best known for her Palme d’Or-winning body horror movie “Titane”, Ducournau wove her latest feature around an unruly teenager and a world plagued by a virus which turns patients’ bodies into marble.

Drunk at a house party, 13-year-old Alpha (Melissa Boros) gets a tattoo from a potentially dirty needle, triggering panic from her mother (Golshifteh Farahani) that she may have caught the unnamed virus and leading to her being shunned at school.

Ducournau, who wrote and directed the movie, said the story stemmed from what she felt was a “dark cycle” in present world events and memories of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and 1990s. The film is not about AIDS, however, she said.

“I felt that these emotions that I’m feeling every day, this knot in my stomach, these tears that are stuck in my throat, that’s something I needed to address,” she said. “The only way to address that was to transfer it to another period of time in which I had this sense, where I really felt that I was born into a world that was doomed to die.”

“The biggest thing that I wanted to talk about is the spread of fear and how fear generates rejection, generates hate,” she said. “If it’s shocking for a young girl who’s fictional, how come it’s not shocking when it happens in real life?”

“Alpha” also stars “The Prophet” star Tahar Rahim as Alpha’s uncle Amin, a drug addict who reappears in her life and whose downward spiral the teen witnesses.

Rahim went through a physical and mental transformation, losing over 20 kilograms (44 pounds) for the role and working with a charity helping drug abusers.

He said joining volunteers on rounds to distribute sterile supplies and spending time with users allowed him to better understand addiction. Combined with the weight loss, it informed his character.

“I felt like someone in his own lab, playing with chemistry to see if it blows up or not to create something,” Rahim, 44, said. “It’s one of the best experiences I’ve ever had, in my acting life, but also in my private life because I felt so wide open. I could feel everything that was surrounding me, the energy.”