Ryan McNeilIt’s difficult to quantify a film like TITANE. One can clearly see its influences in a wide array of stories new and old. It is none of these films, and also all of these films. Then there’s its story – one of family, blood, fire, steel, motor oil, flames, and tears. It is none of these things, and also all of these things.
TITANE is the story of Alexia. When we first meet her as a child, we witness her get seriously injured in an intense auto collision. The next time we see her, she’s a young model paid good money and attracting large crowds to writhe in a bikini on the hood of a classic car.
If that narrative jump feels intense, it’s nothing compared to what comes next.
No sooner do we understand that Alexia herself is capable of great violence, but also that she is a little more attached to her car than first expected. These two details set the scene not only for her violent tendencies to land her in trouble, but also to send her on the run orphaned and pregnant.
It’s this flight that leads her to Vincent – a fire chief who sees her as his runaway son, and gives her safe harbour…despite so much of her circumstances being one giant fucked-up mystery.
Perhaps what is most unexpected is the way TITANE arrives with such rustic presentation. To look at its still imagery and its marketing, one might think that one is signing on for the slick, glossy, fashion-as-violence story that directors like Nicolas Winding Refn has made so popular. Instead, what we are handed is a grungy, grimy, uncomfortable walk through body horror, gender and identity politics, and parenthood.
In the early going of TITANE, Agathe Rousselle writhes nearly naked on the hood of a car in a display of hypersexualized femininity. In the final act, the same actor has a man look her in the eye while she stands half-naked and head shaved with him declaring “You are my son”. Both moments are accepted without question; both moments are accepted on their own terms. It takes a pretty bold movie to push one actor to the feminine and the masculine.
This entire approach to storytelling is so unexpected in TITANE, that it takes a moment to adjust to the velocitization. After all, this is a film that begins with some ultra-violence and crude carnal flaunting. One does not suspect it will suddenly turn into a meditation on parental love and loss. This is what allows the film to elevate itself – the way it turns ultraviolence and exploitation into tenderness and redemption. It’s a story that owes just as much to Michelangelo’s “La Pieta” as it does to Cronenberg’s “Crash”.
TITANE arrives on the cinematic landscape with thoughts on defying conventions and expectations. Perhaps it’s fitting that even going in armed with that knowledge, one will still be struck by its lack of convention and flouting of expectations.
Be forewarned: TITANE needs to be taken on its own terms.
I heard ever since its premiere at Cannes that this film is probably the most insane thing to come out in years and the fact that it won the Palme d’Or makes me want to see this even more. I am intrigued by a film that is willing to go all out into something like this and not apologize for it. I also appreciate the fact that it’s made by a woman who prove that women can out-disgust and out-shock better than any man.