It is difficult not to counter hypes with a certain basic defense. Julia Ducournau’s “Titane” is already considered by many to be the film of the year, and if “many” can agree on an extremely brutal film in which a serial killer who is incapable of empathy has sex with a car, becomes pregnant and then becomes transgender. Fireman goes into hiding, then you think to yourself like this: Hmm, yes, really, so you all suddenly have fun watching a pregnant woman with an iron hairpin in her abdomen stir to get rid of her child? Extreme art, disembodiment, all clear. Like any art-loving fifteen-year-old who is self-respecting and reads “de Sade” to show off to his buddies. It’s been two tough years. Others watch Youtubevidos in which people express pimples. Whatever floats your boat.
Of course, it’s not that simple. The cinema is a violent art form that forces its dream reality in the dark room on the bright screen with manipulative montage and framing. This applies to all films, it is even more true for “Titane” because the director says she uses physical pain to force the viewer to feel what the characters are feeling. While at the same time she tries to create a character with her protagonist with whom one cannot identify. Your Alexia is irrationally violent, brutal, cold, unpredictable. One cannot feel what she is feeling, except on the purely physical level of the pain she inflicts on himself and on others.
She is an aggressive child who harasses his father while driving until he has an accident. A titanium plate is inserted into her head. From that point on, her sexual love applies to cars. She works as a dancer in a sexy car show and occasionally murders friends and foes with an iron hairpin at random. She soon has bondage sex with a warmly lit Cadillac, an almost spiritual apparition. At that point, motor oil pours out of her genitals, and since she fails to get everyone in a series of murders in a shared apartment, she sets her parents on fire and obtains a new identity. Namely as the son of a fire department captain, Adrien, who has been missing for years. To do this, she breaks her nose and ties her breasts and baby bump. The fire department captain turns out to be at least as insane as they are. He rams testosterone injections up his ass every evening and ignores any evidence that his recovered son is a heavily pregnant psychopath – until he becomes a murderer himself. The violence is so omnipresent that it becomes almost comical.
An unconditional love that springs from madness
If that were all, it would be dull in his extremity after thirty minutes. But the director manages to transform the film into a comparatively loving family film in the second half. The new fire brigade father holds Alexia, who is now Adrien, in her callousness with something that is even stronger. And do not laugh: unconditional love. This love clearly springs from his madness; he is so unable to give up his prodigal son that he would rather give all his love to an impostor than say goodbye to the idea that Adrien has returned. His feelings are actually almost unconditional. Even then, when Alexia reveals her true colors in dire need, tries to seduce him, shows him her battered body. When the illusion he so desperately maintained shatters. Even then, love for the other person remains his strongest motive. And he’s rewarded.
An aging body full of steroids: Vincent Lindon as the love-yearning firefighter in “Titane”.
(Photo: rental)
Although gender segregation is one of the main themes of the film, it was picked up by the film magazine Indiewire criticized as trans-hostile. The main character is not a trans person, but a cross dresser. The two processes that are essential moments of self-discovery for real trans people – tying their breasts, injecting testosterone – would be portrayed in the film as disgusting and painful. As something a murderess does to steal another identity. When the police chief introduced his new son to his subordinates, he said: “I am God to you, and that is my son, so he is Jesus to you.” Whereupon one of them mocks: “I didn’t know that Jesus was white and gay.” Logically, Alexia’s transformation from woman to man would be a transformation to the Son of God more than a gender change, and the car that our murderer fucks at the beginning of the film would be the Holy Spirit. However, she can only experience real love when she reveals her true nature. That in turn would be a message on the level of a calendar saying: Only those who show their true nature can experience true love. And, in the case of the father: only those who give up what they have lost will get what they long for.
Whether you want to see this wisdom in the form of a body horror film or not, depends on the strength of the respective stomach and the personal relationship to your own car. Wasn’t it sometimes tempting, so alone with him on the highway at night, to indulge in his oily innards? But seriously. Julia Ducournau speaks in interviews about fluid identities and the monsters that we have to allow. If “Titane” could only be ticked off as a blatant illustration of gender and empowerment discourses, it would be a dreary film in its weirdness. But it surprises you again and again, if only because suddenly an old woman is revived to the rhythm of the Macarena. Up to the last moment he refuses to give clear answers to all the questions he raises, and in doing so asserts himself as a work of art – beyond the chatter of the discourse fashions.
Titans, France, Belgium 2021 – Directed and written by Julia Ducournau. Camera: Ruben Impens. Music: Jim Williams. With Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Laïs Salameh, Garance Marillier, Dominique Frot. Distributor: Koch Film, 108 minutes. Theatrical release: October 7th, 2021.