Having won the Palme d’Or for Titane, Julia Ducournau returns with Alpha. The film follows the titular Alpha, a young girl (played by newcomer Mélissa Boros) coming of age in a world gripped by a mysterious disease that slowly turns people into marble. One day, she comes home to find a stranger in her house — her estranged uncle Amin (Tahar Rahim), who she hasn’t seen since childhood. As the two reconnect, a unique bond begins to form. As with her previous films, Titane and Raw, Ducournau takes a singular approach to genre conventions in Alpha. It is an unsettling film, one with a lingering horror that unfolds throughout.

We spoke with Julia Ducournau and Tahar Rahim as Alpha received its UK premiere during the BFI London Film Festival, discussing Rahim’s intense physical transformation, Ducournau’s reaction to some of the film’s early critical reaction, and its needle drop for the ages.

Barry Pierce: I’m very excited to talk about Alpha because I really think that more films need to begin with Portishead.
Julia Ducournau: [laughs] I’m not going to presume your age but when I was a teenager, Dummy was the album. It’s so moody. I think it reflects the spirit of the 90s. All the songs in my films are in there from the script. I never change my mind. And the reason why I choose certain songs is because of the lyrics. I see the lyrics of a song as a way of conveying the thoughts of my characters without directly expressing them. It’s like their inner voices.
The lyric in Roads that sticks the most with me is the last lyric of the song: “How can it feel this wrong?” It means how did we fuck up so much that we got here? That last lyric ends with the word “wrong” being put on the black screen, and the word resonates very strongly. 

BP: Tahar, I want to know about when you first read the script, what was your initial reaction to it?
Tahar Rahim: I knew that I would read a good script, with great characters and Julia’s unique vision. What happened when I did read it, I found an emotional level that wasn’t written this way in her previous movies. It felt more personal to me. I felt it in my bones. As I read the script, I realised that the movie was, at its core, a family drama first.

BP: All of your films so far have been quite different. I don’t know if you’ll agree with this but Alpha feels like your most “realist” film. In that both Raw and Titane had very heightened, genre-infused plots about cannibalism and science fiction, but Alpha feels more based in reality.
JD: I mean, as far as emotions are concerned, I understand why you use the word realistic. I wouldn’t call it that, though. I believe it’s because going from Titane to Alpha, what changed is that in Titane my characters were, in my head, mythological figures. They were archetypes that I was trying to deconstruct. Even in Raw, I was thinking about Cain and Abel. What I did with Alpha was I totally got rid of the mythological aspect. I really tried to tackle humanity in the most, let’s say, compassionate but raw and frontal way, as a condition that has no exit. I tried to stay at a very human level to incarnate my characters as flawed as they are, without trying to find a solution. So I wouldn’t call it realistic, but I would call it more human, in a way.

“I know I won the Palme, because there are videos that show me that it happened, but I don’t feel that it happened.” — Julia Ducournau

BP: This is the first film you’ve made since winning the Palme d’Or. What does winning that prize do to a filmmaker? Does it feel like all eyes are on you? Are you suddenly kind of scared again?
JD: I’m always scared. I always feel like I’m going back from scratch every time. I always wonder, am I going to be able to do this again? Because as I write my films, it’s a very lonely process. You never know if you have the will or resilience for it. People kind of expect the fact that I was given this honour to be an added pressure but, to be honest, the pressure I put on myself on a daily basis is already quite a lot. [laughs] I know I won the Palme, because there are videos that show me that it happened, but I don’t feel that it happened.

BP: Tahar, it’s good to see you looking nice and healthy because you went through quite a dramatic physical transformation for the film. You lost a lot of weight to play Amin. You also, I believe, did a lot of research into the lives of people who live with drug addiction. Could you tell me about that process?
TR: The loss of weight was inherent to the project, because if I didn’t match the physicality of the character, I could kill the movie from the inside out. The principle is simple: you’ve got to believe in what you see. I volunteered at a facility that helps these people, and I distributed sterile supplies on the streets of Paris. They allowed me into their world. They showed me their vulnerability. They trusted me. 

“If I didn’t match the physicality of the character, I could kill the movie from the inside out.” — Tahar Rahim

BP: Julia what is it like to have an actor go to these dramatic lengths for one of your films?
JD: I always say that when you ask an actor to give you so much of themself, physically, mentally and emotionally, this is something that has to be a give-give. There is no take. You have to give access to yourself. Not only through the script, but through talking about our lives, talking about both our relationships to diseases, to the loss of loved ones, to addiction, to all this. We talked a lot in preparation, just really about ourselves, about our deep wounds. Obviously, I want to say, I did not decide how much weight he had to lose. It was in the script that he had to lose weight but immediately we were like: OK, let’s call a doctor. We hired these people to monitor him throughout his weight loss and then afterwards. I tend to be pretty maternal with my actors.

BP: The disease metaphor that is central to the film, where people are turning into marble, has been read in a lot of ways. Are you surprised by how literal many of the readings are? People have been very quick to decide what the film is actually about. What’s your reaction to that?
JD: As a filmmaker, I use symbolism as one of my main means of expression. I always tend to rely a lot on the freedom of the audience and on their interpretation through the prism of their own experiences. What I always say is that I have my interpretations of some scenes, but they don’t separate any other interpretations, especially when we’re talking about the final scene of the film. People ask: “What does it mean?” It means something to me that is actually quite different from what it means for my characters themselves. I can give you my interpretation if you really want it, but I think that yours, in many ways, is going to be valid too. I do believe that our sense of fiction has changed tremendously because of social media, because people have made their own reality fiction. The line between reality and fiction has blurred immensely. I really believe that people nowadays expect to be confronted with linear storytelling and something that is comfortable. I understand that in a way, because we live in an incredibly unpredictable time right now. I understand the seek for comfort. At the same time, I still battle with the fact that, to me, art is the opposite of comfort. It’s there to raise questions constantly and to never give answers. Because Google gives answers, and, you know, they’re no good.

BP: I want to finish up by talking about Mélissa Boros, because she gives such an incredible performance. What was it like to work with her?
TR: It was great. It felt good because it reminded me how hard and important it is to be hired by a great director to carry a movie. Because that’s what happened to me. [Rahim’s first major role was the lead in Jacques Audiard’s Oscar-nominated A Prophet] It reminded me of these great memories and how scary it was. I would talk with her and she wouldn’t really tell me how scared she was, but I could feel it. It was an absolute pleasure to see her getting more self-confident.

Alpha opens in UK cinemas today.