US Edition‘Alpha’ Review: A Potentially Infected Tattoo Sparks a Tortured AIDS Allegory in Julia Ducournau’s Rotten Follow-up to ‘Titane’
- Julia Ducournau premiered her film Alpha in competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, centering on a 13-year-old girl named Alpha who returns home with a tattoo that upends her life.
- The film revisits the late 1990s AIDS crisis through an allegorical disease turning victims into marble statues, reflecting Ducournau’s experience growing up during the epidemic.
- Alpha’s mother, a medical doctor played by Golshifteh Farahani, rushes her daughter for tests amid fear of infection, while the family faces stigma and isolation as the illness progresses.
- The disease causes bodies to cough chalky powder and gradually fossilize, with Ducournau describing, “That’s what this particular disease does,” emphasizing fear and trauma related to contagion.
- Alpha earned recognition for its emotional depth and empathy, signaling Ducournau’s continued exploration of body horror and human vulnerability while highlighting the impact of loss and stigma.
25 Articles
25 Articles
'Alpha' Review: Julia Ducournau’s Mournful Horror Drama Cuts Through Body and Soul
The term “body horror” is one that carries with it a lot of expectations. If you were to hear it at last year’s Cannes, it would have likely been used in reference to the breakout hit “The Substance,” with its gallons of bloody viscera being splashed all over the screen. But there are also the works of body horror that rely less on external spectacle. Take Julia Ducournau’s quietly flooring “Alpha,” the knockout follow-up to her Palme d’Or-winni…
‘Alpha’ Review: A Potentially Infected Tattoo Sparks a Tortured AIDS Allegory in Julia Ducournau’s Rotten Follow-up to ‘Titane’
Judging by the sudden spike in high-concept AIDS allegories hitting the festival circuit, it must have been the shock of COVID-19 that sent so many artists’ minds racing back to that previous pandemic. In many ways, the mistakes in handling that crisis taught us how to approach subsequent outbreaks in a more humane way. Premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival two years after “Titane” took the Palme d’Or, Julia Ducournau’s “Alpha”…
‘Alpha’: Watch Teaser Trailer For Julia Ducournau’s Cannes Competition Title
Julia Ducournau’s Alpha has been generating buzz in Cannes and now the genre-bending pic has a teaser trailer. The film, which is playing in Competition on the Criosette, follows Alpha, a troubled 13-year-old who lives her single mom. When she returns home from school with a tattoo on her arm, their world collapses. North American […]
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