Titan (2021)

Directed by: Julia Ducournau | 108 minutes | thriller, drama | Actors: Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Garance Marillier, Laïs Salameh, Mara Cisse, Marin Judas, Diong-Kéba Tacu, Myriem Akheddiou, Bertrand Bonello, Céline Carrère, Adèle Guigue, Thibault Cathalifaud, Dominique Frot, Lamine Cissokho

It was no surprise that jury chairman Spike Lee choked on the announcement protocol for the 2021 Golden Palm winner during the closing ceremony of the last Cannes Film Festival edition. After all, the winner ‘Titane’ comes devastatingly hard like a comet into your screen life. . There may have been more balanced and respectable, perhaps even better, films in this edition of the Palme d’Or, but in the end fate chose the most challenging and naughty look at our ever uncertain future. Moreover, director Julia Ducournau resolutely chooses the difficult or almost impassable road for her story and she never puts the brakes on it. ‘Titane’ is a car without a speed limiter and seat belt: who dares to go for a ride?

At the beginning, the film immediately kicks the gas. With her father at the wheel, Alexia has a serious car accident at a young age. Both barely survive and surgeons have to repair Alexia’s badly damaged skull with a piece of titanium. Most children would probably never get in a car again, but after Alexia is released from the hospital, she immediately walks over to the now patched up car and kisses it tenderly. That love for metal curves only grows during Alexia’s adolescence. Especially at extravagant car shows, the rough and not very talkative Alexia, now a professional exotic dancer, is completely in her element and doesn’t feel much for all that soft human flesh around her.

The comparison with the controversial film ‘Crash’ (1995) by body horror master David Cronenberg is easily made. In Cronenberg’s film, people recreate infamous car crashes. After the crash, the drivers and fellow passengers have sex, because after a near-death experience, sex and the orgasms should be more intense. ‘Titane’ also tackles sex and cars, but Ducournau’s film focuses more on the fusion of flesh and metal and not so much on sexual satisfaction. In addition, Ducournau connects transhumanism in her film not only with self-destruction and death, but certainly also with life.

At times ‘Titane’ is masterly and the viewer is transported to strange places. This rapture is mainly in the provocative ideas and the way in which Ducournau depicts in detail and contrasts the various social groups, which Alexia joins during the story. Yet ‘Titane’ is also somewhat sluggish, especially on the thematic level. The film tries so hard to swallow that it rushes past itself a few times. Here’s a concise (certainly incomplete) list of topics the story tries to get hold of and sometimes lets go of at random times: father-daughter/son relationship; transhumanism; sexual preferences for non-living objects; the group versus the individual; transgenderism; Frankenstein’s monster. The film therefore comes across as a bit of a monstrous project, one that consists of all kinds of striking pieces together.

It is only the second feature film by director Julia Ducournau. Her full-length debut ‘Raw’ has already received much praise and is about a vegetarian student who gradually prefers to bite into a piece of meat during her veterinary medicine studies (leader Garance Marillier also makes an appearance in ‘Titane’). ‘Raw’ is less grandiose and full than ‘Titane’, but also more streamlined. Sometimes ‘Titane’ doesn’t seem quite sure where it wants to go, because then it plunges into a different theme or storyline. This is reminiscent of Ana Lily Amirpour’s second film, ‘Bad Batch’. It is visually more spectacular and more daring than her debut ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’ (2011), but it is rather incoherent thematically and story-wise. ‘Titane’ is spared this fate partly thanks to her insane finale, that’s where everything comes together. In the end, this monster film remains strong and its thematic fickleness turns out to be a charm. Just go experience this movie!

One more thing: what’s going on this film year with frustrated men seeking redemption in dance? Dance also plays a transformative role in Thomas Vinterberg’s ‘Druk’. In this context, note the playful reference in the second half of ‘Titane’ to the sublime film ‘Beau Travail’ (Claire Denis, 1999).