French filmmaker Julia Ducournau has channeled personal emotions and collective trauma into her new drama, “Alpha,” which centers on an unruly teenager who navigates a world overrun by a virus that turns patients’ bodies into marble. Best known for the Palme d’Or-winning body horror Titane, Ducournau’s latest features 13-year-old Alpha (Melissa Boros) getting a tattoo from a possibly contaminated needle at a house party. Her mother (Golshifteh Farahani) panics at the risk of infection and Alpha soon faces rejection at school. Ducournau, who wrote and directed the film, said the story reflects a "dark circle" in current world events, interwoven with memories of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and 1990s, although the film is not about AIDS.
"I felt that these feelings that I experience every day—the knot in my stomach, the tears that stuck in my throat—had to be addressed," she said. "The only way to do that was to transport them to another time period where I felt like I was born into a world doomed to die. The biggest thing I wanted to talk about is the spread of fear and how it breeds rejection and hate. If it’s shocking to a fictional young girl, why isn’t it shocking in real life?"
“Alpha” also stars “The Prophet” star Tahar Rahim as “Alpha’s” uncle Amin, a recovering drug addict. Rahim underwent a dramatic physical and mental transformation, losing more than 20 kilograms for the role and working with a charity that supports drug users. Participating in outreach rounds and spending time with users helped him understand addiction, which informed his performance. "I felt like someone in his own laboratory, experimenting to see if he would blow up or not to create something," said Rahim, 44.
"It’s one of the best experiences in my acting career, but also in my personal life, because I felt wide open and could feel everything around me." Alpha is set to open in UK cinemas on Friday.
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