Just before the holiday season, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences released their shortlist for films that will be eligible for a Best International Feature Film nomination. Every year, each country can submit one film that they feel represents the best from their roster. From there, the Academy narrows down the options to 15 films from which the final 5 nominees will be selected.
One film that got snubbed from the shortlist was the selection submitted by France: Julia Ducournau's Titane.
Titane is a body horror film that had divided a lot of critics and film fanatics alike but still managed to have enough passion to take the prestigious Palme D'or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Upon watching the film after putting it on hold for a few months, I could understand why the Academy would look at this film and run away as fast as they could.
That doesn't mean I agree with their opinion, of course.
Titane is an uncomfortable film that can be brutal and disgusting and bizarre and yet...it has this beautifully intriguing relationship that develops as the film moves along.
It begins with a young girl named Alexia sitting in the backseat of her father's car annoying him while he drives. When she unbuckles her seatbelt, he turns around to scold her and he crashes the car. Alexia suffers severe head trauma and must have a titanium plate put in her head. Upon leaving the hospital, she ignores her parents and chooses to hug the family car.
Fast forwarding 20 years or so later, Alexia (now played by Agathe Rouselle) is working as a show girl at a motor show and seems to have many admirers who seek her autograph. After leaving the venue all by herself, a guy stalks and chases after Alexia as she hurries to her car. He wants her autograph but then he confesses his love for her and forces her to kiss him.
Alexia appears to enjoy the kissing but then abruptly stabs him in the ear with her hairpin causing him to seizure violently before dying.
Pulling his body into the car, Alexia realizes she needs to clean herself and goes back inside the venue to shower. While showering, she hears loud banging from the show room space and finds the car she performs with has turned on by itself. She then proceeds to have sex with the car and is able to bring herself to climax.
So, not only does Alexia have a sexual attraction to cars but we also learn she is a serial killer who has been murdering multiple men and women after sexual encounters over the last several months. Her own parents, whom she still lives and has a distant relationship, don't seem to have a clue about her other life.
When a sketch of Alexia's face becomes plastered all over the news after a botched incident murdering multiple people in one house, she ends up trying to pose as a young man named Adrien who has been missing for ten years.
This is when the movie takes a turn that I wasn't quite expecting...not that I was expecting a lot of what happened before. A man named Vincent (Vincent Lindon) shows up at the police station when he is notified that a young man is there claiming to be his long-lost son.
Despite them offering to do a DNA test, Vincent refuses knowing in his heart of hearts that this is his son.
Oh yeah...and Alexia is pregnant...
Yep...she's pregnant...and she is binding her breasts and her stomach as well since it is starting to pop. The film also seems to imply that she got pregnant by the car...
Titane is Julia Docournau's second feature film following Raw, which received a lot of acclaim (though not on the awards circuit) back in 2016. She is already establishing herself as a true visionary who has no shame in going for uncomfortable shock value. She is someone that we all need to watch out for in the film world.
As Alexia, this marks the feature film debut of Agathe Rouselle, who had primarily worked as a writer and model until Docournau discovered her via an Instagram post. Rouselle is more than up for the challenge here. Very few performances have ever been as bold and relentless as her take on Alexia. She comes across as intense and terrifying in the first portion of the film but there is still a lot underneath the surface.
You cannot condone her actions, even if you know she seemingly didn't have the best relationship with her parents...but in the final half of the film, it is remarkable how this fucked up story ended up turning into a portrait of grief and how one person ends up finally finding a father figure they so desperately needed.
YouTuber "The Oscar Expert" referred to Titane as "the most fucked up wholesome movie". While I think he meant that in a tongue-in-cheek way for obvious reasons, there is definitely an underlying sweetness when you realize that Alexia is serving as some form of replacement for Vincent's dead son while Vincent is serving as the warm father figure Alexia needed in her life.
It leads to a climax that was quite chilling...and uncomfortable...and somehow oddly beautiful all at once.
I do think I will have to sit on this one for a bit. I did find some of it a little indulgent or that certain things maybe could've been made clearer rather than being ambiguous for the sake of being ambiguous.
I don't feel that I will knock the film a lot for that though, because it succeeded in almost every department. It manages even to be a comment on gender identity and fluidity in ways you weren't even expecting. I would recommend seeking out articles written on the film that go deeper into film analysis as if any film that has come out in recent years warrants such a reading, it would be Titane.
Lastly, I have to commend this film and the work of Ducournau, Rouselle, Lindon, and the rest for being truly unafraid to be what it is, and it doesn't care if we like it or not.
TITANE will be rated as follows:
Rating: 4.5/5
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