TITANE (2021)

By: Mike Ward on Thursday, December 23

R Running Time: 108 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

You almost have to see TITANE for the sheer audacity of it all.
Contains one of the year’s most brave and fearless performances from first-time actor Agathe Rousselle, who is run through the ringer by director Juiia Ducournau.
The graphic violence, sex, and body horror components will certainly turn a lot of heads and Ducournau definitely is a skilled filmmaker with far-ranging ambition and vision for the stories she is wanting to tell.

NO

“I mean…what.” A text I received from a huge movie fan friend of mine who loves international cinema. Sorta sums it up.
TITANE pivots far too much from one angle to the next to fully deliver on its promise of giving us something groundbreaking and unforgettable. It’s a movie of individualized moments and less a fully realized narrative.
A woman has intercourse with a vehicle and begins leaking oil when her body begins to break open after becoming pregnant. Symbolism or not, that is a lot to ask an audience to process and consider. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of where TITANE takes viewers.

OUR REVIEW

Julia Ducournau’s TITANE is a movie that is as challenging as it is intriguing; a movie that pushes back against viewer sensibilities and takes you on a wild ride that leaves you equally confused and mesmerized. Is this a good movie? I’m not sure, but I do know this is a MOVIE, in all caps, with wild ambition, a middle finger extended high into the sky, and lots to say about lots of different things.

TITANE is basically two films in one. First, this is a cerebral horror movie, analyzing grief and fetish and violent tendencies that come from an absence of acceptance and compassion. After a horrific set of events conclude that portion, Ducournau takes a breath and flips her movie into a domestic drama where a long-standing mystery of a missing son appears to inexplicably resolve. Tied together by tenuous circumstances, the one constant throughout the film comes in a stunning and remarkable performance by Agathe Rousselle, making her feature-film debut.

Where does one begin to explain all of this? Like I said, TITANE is a whole lot of movie.

Let’s try it this way: As a young girl, Alexia suffers a car accident when riding with her father. After enduring a skull injury, she is fitted with a titanium plate on her head and upon release from the hospital, shuns her parents and literally embraces her family’s new car.

As an adult, Alexia is now working as a erotic dancer for high-end car shows where people throw bills at dancers performing on and around luxury-priced vehicles. It’s a strip club unlike any other and Alexia really appears to love her work. After an altercation with a pushy, handsy attendee in a parking lot results in her taking his life with a stunning use of a hairpin, Alexia goes back into the venue to shower. Then, because TITANE is going to do what TITANE does, a car comes to life and summons Alexia into it. Naked, she climbs in. With her hands tied to the car roof, she proceeds to have sex with the car.

Still with me? Cool.

From there, we learn of a serial killer on the loose and Alexia still leaves with her parents, though they have next to no meaningful relationship whatsoever. She falls into a quasi-relationship with co-worker Justine (Garance Marillier), but is drawn to exploring Justine’s pain tolerance. When a house party they attend becomes a violent, blood-soaked horror show, Alexia goes on the run.

Did I mention she’s pregnant? From having sex with the car?

Altering her look, she fashions her appearance to look like that of a boy who has been missing for over a decade. She crosses paths with the boy’s father Vincent (Vincent Lindon), who is convinced that his missing Adrien has come home. Assuming the persona of Adrien, and using perceived trauma as a means not to talk out loud, the two co-exist as Alexia/Adrien continues to hide a pregnancy that appears to be causing them to secrete an oil-like substance.

And that’s about as much as I can say about TITANE without spoiling too much more. Ducournau’s film has wowed audiences and critics, and continues to have people passing out or walking out of theaters as the film continues to travel around for theatrical engagements. Well on its way to becoming a cult classic, there is nothing quite like this movie and its polarizing response seems to have become entirely the point of any and all discussions about the film.

So naturally I have to be the one who falls somewhere in the middle with all of this. TITANE did not move me the way I think I was intended to be moved. There is visceral shock to the graphic violence on display, to the audaciousness of vehicular/human sex, to the twists and turns Ducournau throws at us - occasionally telegraphing her next steps and, in other times, leaving us completely shocked by what we are seeing. This is a movie with too many thoughts - it’s a messy, shambolic affair that looks incredible and feels custom made to make critics stand up and applaud its bravery.

Really though, what is TITANE? A body-horror film? A murder mystery? A serial killer saga? A multi-layered look at grief and the depravity one can experience when made to feel different? A case for feminism? An analysis of our self-worth the older we become? An exploration of gender dysphoria and identity?

I guess it is all of those things. And that is precisely the problem. By being about so many things over the course of a loaded 108 minutes, TITANE becomes a movie about nothing really at all. The movie is all spectacle, with important, nuanced storytelling lost in the wash of oil secretions, cracked skin, scarring, hidden identities, forbiddens secrets and violent death. And sex with a car.

I am admittedly late to the game on TITANE, as compared to my colleagues. To be honest, all I kept hearing about the film was the movie about a woman who has sex with a car. And that’s a shame. Because there is a lot to discuss and analyze here.

The film deserves praise for Jean-Christophe Bouzy’s ability to edit this down into something cohesive, creating linear pathways for Ducournau’s ambition to realize itself on screen. And make no mistake, Rousselle is a force. Her fearless performance, her willingness to put herself through insane physicality and unending emotional depths to deliver everything Ducournau asks of her makes her one of the year’s biggest discoveries.

And yet…and yet…TITANE is a jumble. As much as we appreciate the vision, as much as we appreciate the guts and guile to make a movie this bold and rambunctious, and still find places of pure emotional resonance, we still have a Jekyll-and-Hyde film that wants to be loved and debated at the same time.

Sometimes critics love movies simply because they break apart the conventions of storytelling. I can certainly appreciate that. I also appreciate a movie that exists for something bigger than the spectacle of merely existing. I simply remain unconvinced that TITANE is that movie.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Garance Marillier, Laïs Salameh, Bertrand Bonello, Myriem Akheddiou, Adèle Guigue

Director: Julia Ducournau
Written by: Julia Ducournau (screenplay); Jacques Akchoti, Simonetta Greggio, Jean-Christophe Bouzy (consultants)
Release Date: October 1, 2021
NEON

You almost have to see TITANE for the sheer audacity of it all.

Contains one of the year’s most brave and fearless performances from first-time actor Agathe Rousselle, who is run through the ringer by director Juiia Ducournau.

The graphic violence, sex, and body horror components will certainly turn a lot of heads and Ducournau definitely is a skilled filmmaker with far-ranging ambition and vision for the stories she is wanting to tell.

“I mean…what.” A text I received from a huge movie fan friend of mine who loves international cinema. Sorta sums it up.

TITANE pivots far too much from one angle to the next to fully deliver on its promise of giving us something groundbreaking and unforgettable. It’s a movie of individualized moments and less a fully realized narrative.

A woman has intercourse with a vehicle and begins leaking oil when her body begins to break open after becoming pregnant. Symbolism or not, that is a lot to ask an audience to process and consider. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of where TITANE takes viewers.