A golden palm from Cannes brings it to about four kilograms. But on the shoulders of someone who has won the most important film festival in the world, it can of course weigh much more heavily. “”alpha“Is now a particularly blatant example of a film that breaks down under the burden to have to be something very big, massive and unusual. The Frenchwoman Julia Ducournau has presented one of the most promising directors over the past 25 years with her comeing-of-age” RAW “-and then with her woman-bird-cadillac-mindfuck” Titane ” Cleaned up the main prize in Cannes. Absolutely understandable that after this singular double strike you don't just any Wants to add film.
The sheer pressure with which Ducournau must have worked on this project can be felt in every single scene of your (horror) drama. But the constant overvoltage does not increase the intensity, but makes looking at a real agony: If even in calmer scenes the sound is simply turned up so far that you only want to keep your ears in the cinema, then the less daring direction is than sheer despair. The same applies to the plot, which thinks the AIDS epidemic of the late 1980s as Body Horror, but is so overwhelmed that the film itself simply forgets half of its storylines-and the remaining remainder is increasingly developing into an incoherent mess.
In the middle of a desert sandstorm, Alpha (Mélissa Boros) rolls down the cheek a single red tear.
The 13-year-old Alpha (Mélissa Boros) lives alone with her nameless Mama (Golshifteh Farahani), who as a doctor has all his hands full since then, a-also namelessly remaining-pandemic for overcrowded hospitals: the bodies of those affected are increasingly mineralized until they literally become marble. Her blood is then also no longer liquid, but is like the red desert sand, which is carried by the constant strong storms from Africa to the French port city of Le Havre.
When she loses awareness at a party, Alpha is tattooed by a unknown with a self -made stitch tool in the upper arm. It is not the biggest problem that the wound is inflamed and always begins to bleed. Rather, her mother is very worried that Alpha could have infected itself by using a non -disinfected needle. It is tested immediately, but it takes a few weeks for the result. A time of uncertainty begins in which Alpha is avoided by her classmates for fear of infection …
The start is great!
“Alpha” begins with a grandios-painful moment: We see the five-year-old Alpha (here: Ambrine Trigo Ouaked), how to combine the incitement points on the arm of her addiction patient Armin (Tahar Rahim), as if they were a connect-the-dots puzzle from a children's magazine-devastating! The “Madame Web” star has decreased for the role as a junkie 20 (!) Kilo, and he is now also something like the tragically striking heart of the film: While he would like to die himself, it is his sister who keeps him (even against his will) kept alive-and exerts a similarly close control over him as about her rebellious daughter, who understands and accepts the wishes of her onkels much better. That would be a suitable fabric for such an intense and intimate film.
But Ducunknau (much) more-namely pretty much every aspect of the crisis at the time, wants to translate into its metaphorical epidemic world: from the panic in the greater everyday school life to the dismissal of affiliated hospitals, “Alpha” is stuffed with AIDS metaphors, which are more off to a coherent World Building would contribute. Instead of storming together, they run side by side largely. For example, the school scenes, which are increasingly shaped by Paranoia, are still one of the most exciting moments (especially a sequence in the swimming pool, in which many are kept their eyes because you already suspect what happens there). But after a good half of the film, this aspect simply falls down completely.
A ugly film
Instead, the different time levels are increasingly blurring. While the motivations of the figures are becoming increasingly holy, reality, memories and (displaced) trauma are so fluently interlock that one is less and less ready to follow the increasingly frustrating incoherent. Especially since it is simply not a pleasant (or in a challenging manner) experience to look at “Alpha”: the contrasting, grayish pictures are ugly, while the majority of the infected look as if they were sprayed by a graffiti artist with a little body-paint.
But the worst is the completely over -the -top, offensive aggressive sound design: background noises and pieces of music are regulated even in more harmless scenes such as a family celebration to over -control, so that it is simply annoying to complain. Nothing against a deeply disturbing, like to be really uncomfortable canvas vision – but please not on such a cheap, striking way. If you look at “Alpha” comfortably at home with television speakers in a few years, you will probably ask yourself what the whole thing has actually meant around the sound (and then it is more due to it, because the pressure on the boiler is missing). In the cinema, however, “Alpha” provides too few good reasons to expose itself to this for more than two hours.
Conclusion: After two absolute hits Julia Ducournau, in the third attempt, hits completely with full swing. That is a shame, but hopefully will give her the opportunity to build on her first works again with significantly less pressure in the future.
We saw “Alpha” at the Cannes Film Festival 2025, where he celebrated its world premiere as part of the official competition.