Julia Ducournau is very good at making films that are hard to describe to people. The French writer-director’s 2016 debut Raw used cannibalism to explore sibling rivalries, but was also keenly interested in sex, family trauma, and the female body. Trying to explain it to my family recently, I sounded like a madman. I sounded similarly insane trying to explain her latest – the brutal, stomach-churning, surprisingly moving Titane. For this is a film that pushes both buttons and boundaries, to the extent that it’s one of the most violently indescribable films I’ve ever seen. It’s also one of the best movies of the year.
To tell you the vague plot of Titane is to ask that you trust me completely. Having said that, the film is probably best experienced with as little foreknowledge as possible, so if you’d like to do that, skip to the next paragraph. If you’re still here, then let me run you through some plot details. We meet a young girl named Alexia, who’s involved in a car accident that means she needs a titanium plate sewn into the side of her skull. Years later, Alexia is a dancer at a car show (think those girls in bikinis from the early Fast & Furious movies, but hornier). When a ‘fan’ gropes her, she kills him by jamming a hair pin into his ear, and then has intense sex with the car she was just dancing on. Told you you’d need to trust me. And from there, things only get stranger.
If there was a single weak link in Titane, the entire thing would fall apart at the seams. But because there isn’t, it doesn’t. Ducournau’s screenplay is incredible, but what’s so astounding about it here is that the film is at its best when the script takes a back seat. Its most incredible moments, the kind that will sear themselves into your brain until the day you die, are purely visual, and both haunting and moving in equal measure. The aforementioned sex scene is fascinating to watch unfold, particularly in a cinematic landscape so starved of sex across the board, while a dance sequence later on to the folk song ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ (put to excellent use in such recent fare as 1917 and The Last Of Us Part II) proves an impressively emotional character moment. And really, it’s the characters that make the film truly work.
Alexia is something of an enigma when we first meet her, and though she has very little dialogue throughout the film, we gradually start to figure her out through Agathe Rouselle’s entirely disarming performance. For a good chunk of the film, Alexia is cold, unfeeling, unwilling to engage with others. But her personal predicament (best left unsaid) forces her away from home and far outside her comfort zone, and the middle third of the film is left nearly entirely dialogue-free as a result. Were it not for Rouselle’s electric presence this section of the film would fall flat, but her magnetic performance is undoubtedly one of the film’s highlights.
Credit, too, must also go to Vincent London for his stellar supporting turn. To give details of his character would be to give away plot points unnecessarily, but his introduction adds a whole new dimension to Titane, and allows it to transform itself from straight-up horror into something much more tender and loving, and gives the film’s ending its much-needed (and much-earned) catharsis. Ducournau’s interest in fire throughout the film (and, indeed, in its marketing) helps earn this catharsis through the ideas of birth and rebirth – the phrase “trial by fire” has perhaps never been more apt.
The thing about Titane is that it isn’t just one type of film: it’s a body horror, yes, and in the way that Ducournau is quickly showing she’s excellent at making, but it’s also a surprisingly sweet love story. Its commentary on the female body pulls no punches, and is balanced out with character development that dives headfirst into the horrific effects of grief, and how much someone can long for the return of the person they’ve lost.
Titane is simultaneously gruesome in the vein of such auteurs as Cronenberg and Carpenter, and tender and loving in the ways of Linklater and Sciamma - and as a result, it’s one of the most visceral, enthralling, and outlandish films of the year. For any director to strike such a balance is staggering, but for someone to do it on only their second feature? They must be a genius.
Verdict:
Julia Ducournau has outdone herself yet again. Merging body horror with a coming-of-age story proves a masterstroke for the director, who’s quickly proving herself to be one of the most fascinating voices in international horror. Thanks to her sublime direction and stellar turns from Agathe Rouselle and Vincent London, Titane stands tall as one of the finest films of 2021. Christmas fun for all the family!
9/10
Titane is in select cinemas from December 26.
Images courtesy of Altitude. All rights reserved.
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