Where & When: AMC Sunset 5, West Hollywood, CA. October 3, 2021 2:45 PM
There is absolutely nothing about "Titane (Titanium)", Julia Ducournau's evocative and deranged horror thriller, that feels reasonable. There is some spectacularly gruesome carnage and disturbing violence. There is dark humor and wildly absurd plot twists. We also have moments that are thought-provoking and emotionally moving. Yet it all largely works as the provocative French filmmaker upends our expectations by deconstructing this genre, taking us on a strange, surreal journey that challenges our ideas on gender and identity.
The film opens with a drive out on the open road with a father (Bertrand Bonello) and his young daughter, Alexa (Adèle Guigue). But there is some tension inside of the car, with the father trying to drown out his daughter's continuous mimicking of the sound of the car's engine. As he turns the radio's volume up, she just gets louder. Bored with this game, Alexa begins kicking the back of his seat. When she refuses to stop, a moment of anger erupts as he turns to face her, causing him to crash the car. After an intensive surgery, Alexa has been fitted with titanium plate in to her severely damaged skull. There seems to be no sign of any lasting physical damage to the young girl yet this accident appears to have left a deep psychological connection between Alexa and automobiles.
The next time we see Alexa (now played by Agathe Rousselle in her film debut), she is a young woman dancing seductively as a model at a car show. Still brooding and dead-eyed as she was as a child, Alexa has grown up with a behavior far more dangerous; a secret desire to commit cold-blooded murder. Watching a newscast on television warning of a series of grisly murders occurring around the city, she casually eats in her parent's home, knowing exactly where they can locate the killer.
After a botched killing spree, with a potential victim escaping, Alexa has to go the run. Going through a dramatic and harrowing transformation, she takes on the identity of Adrien, a boy who has been missing for ten years. The police contact the boy's father, Vincent (Vincent Lindon), a fire captain who accepts Alexa as "Adrien" with no further proof needed. The other fire fighters at the station don't know what to make of the captain's traumatized, mute "son" but must welcome him as an apprentice member of the team. And there is one more thing; Alexa has been impregnated by a car with something growing inside of her.
"Titane" won Ducournau the top prize of the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, making her only the second female filmmaker to win this award, following Jane Campion for "The Piano" in 1993. This is the follow-up to her 2016 debut, "Raw", another outlandish shocker that featured Garance Marillier (who makes a brief appearance in "Titane") as a young vegetarian who develops a taste for human flesh. With "Titane", Ducournau goes even further with some pretty extreme ideas, many to the point of being completely ridiculous. Yet she manages to make this story work, largely by taking every preposterous moment seriously while cleverly touching on themes involving cross-dressing, gender politics, familial bonding and homoeroticism to heighten this odd drama, subjects not usually found in the horror genre. Her script also abandoned the standard three-act structure, allowing Ducournau's peculiar story to flow at her own desired pace, which shifted the film further off balance.
Not wanting audiences to have any expectations with a familiar face in the leading role, Ducournau set about finding an unknown performer. She came across Rousselle, a frustrated actor who for years didn't have much luck getting any attention, working largely as a model and photographer. And while she doesn't deliver much dialogue, Rousselle is a wildly physical, sensual presence, demanding that you to never take your eyes off of her. On screen for most of the film, the actress delivers a raw, fearless performance, displaying Alexa's eerie stillness and unpredictable fury, behavior much like a caged animal. She manages to disgust and shock you yet also develop some concern and sympathy for her deranged character.
Let's just be clear here; "Titane" is not for the faint of heart (there were reports of viewers actually passing out during early screenings at some film festivals) or for those who like their narratives to be fairly straightforward. And while "Titane" didn't work entirely for me, I was constantly on the edge of my seat, never able to predict where the film was taking me and covering my eyes in terror by some of the more brutally horrific images that appeared on screen. I was shocked and appalled yet thoroughly entertained, enjoying the feeling of uncertainty and the unpredictable nature of this twisted tale. It's clear that Ducournau's intension was to provoke and leave you feeling deeply unsettled by her work. And she certainly succeeded at her task. But it is also clear that the director had some intriguing and thoughtful ideas to communicate yet no desire to express them in any conventional way. Ducournau is a wonderfully, refreshing filmmaker, commanding a bold vision, assured artistry and more than willing to challenge audience's expectations.
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