Julia Ducournau’s Titane opens with what can only be described as an erotic tour of the underside of a car: a whirring engine, lead pipes glazed in motor oil, complex patterns on the battery and the cars’ bottom casing. It invites you to consider the aesthetic pleasure of machinery and its’ sexual connotations -something anyone who’s been to a car show might be subconsciously familiar with. Ducournau though is blunt, tying these images directly to a later scene of her protagonist Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) gyrating on and dry humping a sports car for several onlookers. The common denominator between both is titanium (titane), built into the vehicle by design, embedded into Alexia’s head by stroke of an accident.
Titane is not a movie that could ever have been made in the United States film industry -certainly not in its’ current state. It is extreme in its’ subject matter and artistry alike; a movie that pulls no punches, sacrifices nothing for common taste. It is quite purely what Ducournau wants it to be, in all its’ madness and perversity, humour and tenderness alike. That it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes (making Ducournau only the second woman director to win that coveted prize after Jane Campion) is a testament to the boldness of that jury, which is lacking in many awards show counterparts. When we heard that arguably the highest honour in the film industry this year went to a movie where a woman is impregnated by a car, we found it amusing -but wasn’t it also intriguing? I know it brought my attention immediately to this rising director, whose debut feature -the cannibal horror Raw- caused a minor stir a few years ago. I’m surprised that this one hasn’t -perhaps those same audiences were better prepped for Ducournau’s insane vision. Though I don’t know how one could be. Titane is a movie that over the course of two hours goes down some wildly divergent and unexpected tracks.
The movie begins with the girl Alexia inadvertently causing a car crash that results in an injury whereby she needs a metal plate grafted into her head. As soon as the operation is complete, her parents she ignores and instead kisses their car. The movie may suggest in this that Alexia’s later mechanophilia (the sexual attraction to vehicles) is due to that titanium plate, but at the same time Ducournau entertains more nuance in Alexia’s sexual interests. She’s not necessarily averse to human sexuality -indeed she experiments with one of her showgirl co-workers at one point, but she doesn’t understand the boundaries of pleasure and pain. Other people in general seem to confound her, and her reactions to that puzzlement are terribly severe.
Generally, she kills them, and quite violently too. It is in effect her punishment for their inability to stir her desires. In the midst of her killing spree though, something does. She is in a manner seduced by the glamourous sports car -the thrill of that machine analogous to her thrill of murder. There’s something of an understated sadomasochism to Alexia that is most apparent in the critical sex scene where she straps her hands to the seatbelts as she rocks the car to what is illustrated to be a mutual orgasm. Pleasure and pain intertwined. How the car does this is rightly unexplained -Ducornau refuses to cater to reality where her machines are concerned. Keeping their secret retains their mystique. All that matters is that Alexia is then pregnant -how and with what, a terrifying mystery to her.
Cronenberg might lean in to the horror and grossness of what this does to Alexia, as in Rabid or The Fly. Curiously though, the body transformation that Alexia undergoes is less on account of the pregnancy than it is of her own volition. Her unique situation does eventually manifest frightful anomalies -she starts lactating motor oil for instance. But its’ Alexia who makes herself into Adrien when, due to a manhunt for her crimes, she must disguise her identity and chooses that of a missing child from about a decade ago whose presumptive modern appearance she believes she can impersonate. Through a shaven head, a broken nose, and a taped down stomach, she becomes Adrien, and its’ here where the film starts to truly reveal itself. In the custody of Adriens’ father Vincent (Vincent Lindon), both Alexia’s sense of self and our understanding of her are re-contextualized. For one thing, the old Alexia completely disappears, Rousselle transforming not only her physical appearance but personality and attitude -she acts well the shell of a lost boy, refusing to trust or talk to Vincent, carrying herself completely differently as mandated by the disguise. And she witnesses his patience towards her in spite of this, his protectiveness, and defence when some at the fire station he commands doubt Adriens’ identity. Eventually, Alexia and Adrien are blurred.
Vincent is a man on some level unable to confront multiple tragedies. He may not be entirely convinced in ‘Adrien’, but he is desperate for someone to love -refusing a paternity test when taking Adrien in. He is also the films’ most explicit avatar of body dysmorphia -he is addicted to steroids which he takes daily in the vain hope of achieving a particular male body image. And we see in him there a reflection of Alexia -somewhat androgynous, able to shift between female and male presenting, yet doesn’t seem wholly comfortable with either body, certainly not in a sexual way. A caring relationship develops, ‘Adrien’ begins to fit in at Vincent’s work, and in one of the best scenes of the movie, at a firehouse party, casts aside the confines of gender by dancing on top of a fire truck in male presentation but with the feminine sexuality displayed at her earlier job. Titane is a wonderfully, vividly queer movie, and Ducourneau knows exactly how to show it. It’s about breaking down binaries and empathizing with otherness, nowhere better conveyed than in the bond between Alexia/Adrien and Vincent -two lonely, dysfunctional people coping with very different traumas and body issues, but who provide each other emotionally exactly what they need. It’s downright sweet, this love story, compassionate and non-sexual and very weird, but ultimately moving. I don’t know how Ducourneau did it, or her actors for that matter.
On that subject, Agathe Rousselle is unbelievable -it may well be the best performance of 2021! She communicates very little but says an awful lot -while still keeping up some mystery as to her characters’ true motivations and personality. The role is an extremely demanding one as well, both physically and psychologically, though never for a moment is Rousselle less than exemplary in her dedication and fortitude. And her mastery of the manner and body language of two genders rivals even Tilda Swinton in Orlando. Vincent Lindon is also unexpectedly fantastic in a less taxing but still exhaustive performance of a man who has a lot more nuances than he lets on. Noteworthy in the cast too are Garance Marillier from Raw as Alexia’s almost-lover, and noted transgressive filmmaker Bertrand Bonello as her father.
Turning back to this director though, Ducourneau’s creative technical prowess cannot be understated -as eclectic and sensational and beautiful as her outrageous story. There’s a breathtaking energy to the movies’ early sequences that gives way to a restrained tenderness, before melding the two in the end in a mesmerizing contradiction that against all odds coalesces. Her carefully composed visuals run the gamut of sexy, haunting, funny, unsettling, awesome, gross, and profound. The way she captures fire is especially magnificent -grand, bright, and powerful in a way that evokes freedom more than destruction -only machines does she grant greater respect. She genuinely makes the car sex scene erotic through stunning lighting and framing that highlights its’ immaculate design in tandem with Alexia’s alluring body -yet also allows it to be perhaps winkingly humourous, what with the image of the car bouncing up and down to cartoonish extremity. Strong stylistic choices persist throughout, especially with regards to Alexia’s body, but also to the violence in the early goings. The chemistry that Ducourneau conjures between the cinematography (almost entirely a oner) and the music of a major killing scene early on is remarkable -a chaotic, exciting, grisly sequence unlike anything I’ve seen in a movie in a while. Her use of music overall is remarkable: nobody is going to forget this movies' random appearance of the Macarena!
Ducourneau is an artist of a singular captivating, fucked up, yet noble vision, and it is entirely on display in Titane -a triumph of ambition and originality. Movies as bold and as strikingly transgressive yet with something of legitimate importance to say don’t come along very much. Titane truly is one in a million. A part of me would join the throng wishing for more movies like it, but I also appreciate how uniquely special Titane is, and don’t want that taken away. I did wince or had to avert my eyes occasionally during the movie -it is not an easy watch. The BBC’s Nicholas Barber even called it “the most shocking film of 2021." This is true. It is also one of the best.
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