REVIEW: Titane (2021)
By Mai Ly Hagan
Warning: Spoilers for Titane ahead.
“Flesh is a function of enchantment. It uncreates the world,” wrote Angela Carter in her 1977 postmodern novel Passion of the New Eve. Like Titane, Carter’s novel explores the physical transformation of the protagonist as they encounter an increasingly hostile environment. But while the horrors the protagonist of Passion of the New Eve experiences are external, navigating a dystopian America, the horror of Titane lies within the internal world of the protagonist. The protagonist of Titane finds herself in an utterly inexplicable circumstance. Only the viewer is granted entry into her grotesque world, sharing her sense of impending doom as she undergoes an inevitable transformation. Titane is a ticking time bomb. The narrative, while constantly taking unexpected directions, nevertheless funnels itself at full throttle towards demise. We, the protagonist and the audience, are locked in a vessel headed towards collision. There is no escape. All we are able to do is watch the narrative unravel. In her latest film, Julia Decournau mechanizes body horror as a vehicle to create a portrait of a wayward soul, exploring the significance of gender, family, and identity.
The film begins with a crash. A young girl named Alexia gets into an automobile accident and has a titanium plate installed beside her brain. After leaving the hospital, she gives the car a warm embrace, as if she is thankful for the collision. We flash forward to her adulthood where she works as an exotic dancer at car shows. Female bodies are on full display, Alexia dances confidently while men ogle from a distance. Alexia, from the beginning, is aloof. Her large brown eyes stare knowingly at the outer world, seemingly cognisant of a hostile presence that the rest of her world seems oblivious to. Agathe Rouselle, in her performance, captures the carnality of an animal ready to strike back. She silently treads through the world, her fortified countenance leaving the audience unable to tell whether she is acting out of strategy or desperation. At one moment, she is shockingly violent, yet as the plot moves forward she becomes incapacitated, trapped as a prisoner of her self-made circumstance. In that sense, Alexia embodies both the predator and the prey.
The first half of the film is concerned with Alexia’s entry into the vagabond lifestyle, presenting as a more traditional tale of a murderer. It is not clear what motivates Alexia to kill, only that she does it without hesitation and apparently no inclination of stopping anytime soon. Every action is instinctual. Similarly, as Alexia cleans herself up after her first on-stage kill, she is alerted to the revving and blaring lights of a vehicle from the car show. She lets herself into the car and is taken for a ride (pun intended). Each choice made by Alexia sends her further and further into damnation, as her actions become less calculated and more capricious. Caught in the middle of a murder spree, Alexia is given no choice but to either run or hide. Alexia chooses the latter. She disguises herself as a grown up version of a missing child. Thus, Alexia becomes Adrien.
In the first act we watch Alexia enter free fall. The second act halts her momentum, as she becomes trapped in an identity which is not her own, and a body which she can no longer control. Ducournau utilises the makeover montage, reminiscent of teen romcoms, to depict Alexia’s transformation. However, this time the makeover is dark and desperate. Stark and colourless lighting, jump cuts, and sharp composition creates a dichotomous effect, reflecting Alexia/Adrien’s interstice between two worlds and two identities. The makeover is not an easy one, such as when Alexia/Adrien repeatedly tries to break their nose. The camera doesn’t waver for a second, and we watch as they continue to mutilate themselves without hesitation; their survival overriding any present inhibitions. The camera peers over Alexia/Adrien’s shoulder while they stare at themself in the mirror, unable to recognise what they’ve become. One can not help but feel that they are intruding on a moment they are not meant to see. What seals Alexia’s fate as Adrien is when they wrap a bandage over their growing pregnant belly, crushing the flesh and metal in order to take on a new form.
It is unclear what keeps Alexia/Adrien going. Maybe it is the prospect of giving birth. After all, Alexia has spent so much of her life in solitude that perhaps she simply desires another connection, something made of her own flesh. As far as pregnancies go, however, Alexia’s is beyond horrific: diesel fuel leaks out of Alexia’s breasts and metal begins to burst through her stomach. When Alexia realises terminating the pregnancy is not possible, she resorts to denial, binding herself tighter and tighter as the pain becomes increasingly excruciating. Still, in private moments she can’t help but peer in curiosity. Such as when the child kicks for the first time, it’s limbs protruding far out of her stomach. Alexia stares at their fetus with a mixture of terror and wonder, still she reaches back for the child. Even as the fetus causes her pain, part of her feels compelled to protect her own flesh. What destroys her is also a vehicle of life. The child is physical proof of her misdeeds yet, in some sense, a miracle — the unification of the natural and mechanical.
The dynamic between parent and child is explored in many lights, especially with the relationship between reunified father and son: “Adrien” and his father Vincent (played by Vincent Lindon). Vincent, a fire captain, introduces Adrien to a world of hypermasculinity. Once again, Adrien’s presence in the fire station is greeted with hostility, as those around him fail to understand Adrien’s androgynous appearance and muteness. Still, Adrien is protected by his loving father Vincent, who cherishes being reunited with his son to the point of obsession. Vincent is a man concerned with appearances, especially with how he presents himself to the fire station. Adrien thus exists as an extension of his performance. Vincent finds himself increasingly frustrated with Adrien’s aloofness, desperately begging for his “real” son back. Aside from Alexia/Adrien, the only other character who the audience encounters in their solitary moments is Vincent, as we watch him stare in frustration at his deteriorating body and inject himself with steroids, a transformation scene which mirrors that of Alexia’s. The relationship comes to a head when Alexia/Adrien finds their father prostrate on the floor after an apparent suicide attempt and later when Vincent uncovers the true nature of Adrien’s identity. Both father and son’s private worlds are revealed. At the end of the day, they learn to accept one another; finding in each other the missing father/son, a relationship built out of chance and necessity. As they embrace each other, they both find within the other something which they had been deeply yearning for.
Titane, absurd in its premise, captures the experience of the subversive. The fast traveling narrative takes us between extremes of hyper-femininity, hyper-masculinity, depravity, and domesticity. It is a film that never explains itself, rather allowing the audience to bask in horror and awe. Returning to the Carter quote from the introduction — Titane uncreates itself in its duration, ultimately straying further into the world of incomprehension. Though it’s not a story we’re meant to understand, rather something that we must simply accept. The bodies of the characters are not bound to the same earthly limits as the viewers, they morph and mutate and persevere in order to tell a tale of survival, and rebirth in the face of destruction. Ducournau pushes the human body to its limit, creating a wholly unique and resonant tale that pushes the limits of horror as well as creative storytelling as a whole. Titane is one striking, unforgettable ride. ◆
