Titane (2021) (French Language)- BFI London Film Festival 2021

Review

126min

Genre:       Crime, Drama, Thriller

Director:     Julia Ducournau

Cast:         Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Garance Marillier…and more

Writers:     Julia Ducournau

-Synopsis-

A detached and fearsome exotic dancer with a scarring past and morbid present goes on the run, plunging into gender fluidity and a new identity when she forms a curious deceptive bond with a grieving firefighter pining for his lost child, as her strange relationship with cars and a predilection for ultra-violence give way to something even more bizarre and transformative.

After her triumph in the ‘first feature’ competition in 2016’s edition of the London Film Festival, and a year which saw her take the film festival circuit by storm with her unforgettably bold and macabre debut ‘Raw’, French writer/director Julia Ducournau returns in intense madcap style for her sophomore effort. Taking inspiration from body horror of the 1970s and 80s, the energy, style and violence of 90s American independent film, Asian extreme and cult cinema in general, not to mention some of her more recent contemporaries like Gaspar Noé and Quentin Dupieux, adding a distinct storytelling voice to her proclivities for sex & violence to underline her growing reputation as one of the more daring and exciting filmmakers to have emerged in recent years.

Agathe Rousselle stars as ‘Alexia’, the aloof and mysterious star of an underground French erotic car dancing subculture who moonlights as a brutal needle-wielding serial killer, only to go on the run and find refuge in a stranger through an unlikely bond built on deception with troubled and grieving middle-aged fire captain ‘Vincent’ (Vincent Lindon). As a bizarre and tentative relationship built on loss and lies develops while she undergoes a life-changing transformation, which promises to bring life into the world rather than taking from it.

If you left 2016’s ‘Raw’ thinking now there’s a director with an interesting taste for the macabre and the crimson red, then ‘Titane’ only proves Julia Ducournau’s bloodlust continues unsatiated, only now morphed into a darker oily hue. Add to that a weird and rare female psychosexual serial-killer crime element, graphic nudity and sex that’s more troubling than it is erotic, a bizarre parenting allegory, and a conception more unlikely than Christ’s—then you’ve got an idea about the bizarre concoction of metal and flesh that Ducournau is brewing.

Yet devious and daring as it is, there’s also plenty of humour here, granted mostly of the dark and absurdist variety but with the odd bit of farce and whimsy to break up the drama and tension at unexpected times, which underlines Ducournau’s determination to not only blend styles and genres, but also elements within genres. But make no mistake ‘Titane’ is dark, at times morbid, and occasionally grotesque, leaning into its lead character’s appetite for carnage and peculiar sexual proclivities which lead directly into the most freakish element of the whole film, giving the director the chance to experiment with some fuel-injected body horror too.

The film has a certain mechanical feel and aesthetic that’s fed by the production designs and how it’s shot by Belgian cinematographer Ruben Impens (Raw, Beautiful Boy), with the action taking place largely at night and under artificial light, whilst some of the more manic and pulsating moments are neon-lit. Meanwhile the film’s energy—which fluctuates between frenzied, ominous, awkward, and even whimsical—is driven by a score from British composer Jim Williams (Raw, Beast) and a soundtrack which blend synth compositions and ominous choral pieces with trance tunes, both classic and modern synth pop, and some classic 60s standards.

As unlikely as it may seem once you’re in the throes of all the moody madness here, ‘Titane’ is also something of a character study on pain—albeit a highly unconventional genre-set one—taking shape as a curious character drama about strange people broken by grief or corrupted by childhood trauma and neglect. It’s partially led by a towering performance from the always excellent Vincent Lindon as you’ve rarely seen him before, playing the tough but crumbling older firefighter grieving for a lost child, open to filling a gaping hole in his life with the most improbable of figures.

But the film ultimately stands on the slender shoulders of debutante Agathe Rousselle who delivers a warts-and-all visceral tour-de-force which is physically naked but emotionally concealed, completely commanding the screen as an impulsive sociopathic victim of trauma who might also be callous by nature, fluctuating between being seductive and enigmatic whilst also inscrutable and odious, seemingly lacking empathy for anyone—until she meets a father figure like she never truly had, and is given by bizarre painful circumstance a shot at birth . . . and rebirth.

For all the styles and genres it tries to straddle, an insightful and compelling character study ‘Titane’ is not. No doubt Ducournau’s is trying to maintain an air of mystery surrounding her main character so there isn’t much context or backstory beyond a brief glimpse at childhood trauma, which is both physically and emotionally scarring, and even less when it comes to Lindon’s character. And it’s unclear whether the director expects the audience to empathise or identify with ‘Alexia’ because of her plight or gender, or whether Ducournau doesn’t care and is letting the viewer be seduced by pure charisma and carnage, ala ‘American Psycho’.

The result is that we don’t really know how to feel about anyone in the film, if we feel anything at all, which is an ironic mirror of the French psycho’s own mind, not too much behind the eyes. What we’re left with is mostly a visceral tapestry of flesh, carnage, and awkwardness, sprinkled with a morbidly fantastical element which feeds metaphors about the flawed human condition, trauma, and legacy—all of which hardly seem to matter in the end.

Yet despite its lack of depth and curious nature, there’s so much going on in so much frenzied style that there’s no resisting the film’s macabre charms, and a narrative path that could lead you anywhere . . . whether you want to go or not. Much like Ducournau’s brief career thus far, ‘Titane’ will undoubtedly prove an acquired taste, but for us it’s pumped with enough adrenaline and psychotic personality to whip up a thick and raw morsel for the audience to chew on—leaving a metallic aftertaste to savour and contemplate.

The Bottom Line…

A visceral and bizarre genre-straddling concoction of metal and flesh, ‘Titane’ forcibly conquers any shortcomings with morbid style and ominous atmosphere, requiring a suspension of your disbelief and gag reflex to present the audience with a batshit crazy modernist deviant fairy tale about broken people and ill deeds, further underlining Julia Ducournau’s growing reputation as a bold new filmmaker that’s impossible to ignore.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

Deerskin (2019) (French Language)

A curious French man develops an obsession with a brown suede deerskin jacket with its own personality, as he sequesters himself in a small country town and assumes the identity of a makeshift film director, roping in a local barmaid and aspiring editor as he goes about making his morbid cinematic opus and fulfilling a bizarre sartorial manifesto, while gathering all the elements to create a killer look . . . quite literally.

Directed by Quentin Dupieux and starring Jean Dujardin, Adèle Haenel and Albert Delpy among others.

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