FILM
Heavy Metal Poisoning
Barriers between humans, machines break down in “Titane”
BY STEVE ERICKSON
“Titane” is determined to
make David Cronenberg’s
“Crash,” its biggest inspiration,
look tame. Its
vision embraces the ambiguous
potential of queerness. Gender is
fl uid, barriers between human
and machines have broken down.
Its body-horror should be a logical
extension of director Julia Ducournau’s
short “Junior” and fi rst feature
“Raw.” Those fi lms used genre
tropes to convey the changes experienced
by teenage girls and young
women as they grow up.
By legend, one Toronto Film Festival
passed out in shock at the gory
cannibalism in “Raw,” although
Ducournnau doubts this story’s
truth. She tops the shock value of
“Raw” within the fi rst half hour of
“Titane.” The scene where a woman’s
hair gets caught in a pierced
nipple will make most spectators
squirm. But the fi lm strains hard
in its punk posturing, especially
since its other infl uences — Shinya
Tsukamoto’s “Testuo: Iron Man,”
the 2000s New French Extremity
movement — did this better.
When Alexia (Agathe Rouselle)
was a child, she survived a car accident
caused by her father. But she
required surgery to implant a titanium
plate in her head. (“Titane” is
the French word for the metal.) It
still left her with permanent damage
to one ear and a partially exposed
brain. As an adult, she gyrates
like a stripper at automotive
“Titane” opens October 1 at AMC Theatres.
shows, entertaining the spectators.
She’s also a serial killer with a fetish
for cars. After she has sex with
a car, she becomes pregnant with
its fetus, and her belly gradually
expands. But her life takes a new
turn when she decides to pose as
Adrien, the grown son of Vincent
(Vincent Lindon), who disappeared
as a child a decade ago. She transforms
herself into a man, hanging
out with an ultra-masculine group
of fi refi ghters and becoming accepted
by them.
“Titane” is loaded with nudity,
none of it sexy. (Obviously, that’s a
subjective judgment.) It might have
been made to bring certain images
to life, like Alexia scratching
open a hole in her pregnant belly
or leaking oil from her breasts. Her
body was marked by the car crash
in ways she couldn’t control. Her
tattoos and piercings allow her to
reclaim her own agency, but almost
every time we see her naked
body, it’s scratched up, or worse.
At the car show, she’s performing
to please men, but she tells off a
fan who’s too bothersome. The fi lm
defi es expectations about violence
towards women (and their ability
to commit it themselves.) As Peter
Debruge wrote in a Variety review,
“In a more traditional horror
movie, a character like this, leaving
the venue after everyone else,
might wind up victimized — raped
or stabbed by a lusty serial killer.
But that’s not at all how the night
plays out, and before long, Alexia
has demonstrated that she can defend
herself just fi ne.”
“Titane” fl irts with recognizable
emotions, while it keeps denying
them. Despite its icy veneer,
“Crash” was ultimately a
story about genuine love tied to
the death drive. Ducournau’s direction
is deliberately garish, with
exaggerated lighting and colors.
The cinematography oozes neon
sleaze. While “Titane” may go further
CAROLE BETHUEL
than “Raw” in many respects,
it lacks Ducournau’s earlier fi lm’s
ability to ground its fl ights of fantasy
in a believable character going
through a real struggle. The fi nal
scene of “Raw” adds up to more
than the entire subplot between
Vincent and Alexia.
“Titane” expresses something
about father/child relations and
chosen families. Masculinity is
seen as a posture that even cis
men have to work hard on. Vincent
has destroyed his buttocks
with ugly bruises caused by injections,
probably of steroids. But
once Alexia shaves her head and
binds her breasts, she’s accepted
as male despite her pregnant belly.
By the end, Vincent realizes
that she’s probably not his son,
but gets something out of their relationship
anyway. The problem is
that “Titane” is so impressed with
its own transgressions that it forgets
what it’s doing with such extreme
metaphors. The emotional
bond between Vincent and Alexia
plays second fi ddle to images of
her body covered in scratches and
scars.
TITANE | Directed by Julia Ducournau
| Neon | In French with
English subtitles | Opens Oct. 1st at
AMC Theatres
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