Julia Ducournau
Titane

Sick

Unhealthy

Powerful

Morbid

Shocking

Shot and acted by the gods, with a furious beginning and a bewildering, moving, delirious continuation.

All this is just to give a vague idea of what you might expect when watching this disturbing masterpiece, TITANE, Palme d'Or at Cannes 2021.

Yet it is an imperfect film, in its writing for sure, allegorical, absurd, unfeasible. To give you an idea, just read the comment of a laconic Moretti, defeated by TITANE at Cannes with his weak THREE FLOORS: “To age all of a sudden. It happens. Especially if your film is in a festival. And doesn't win. And instead, another film wins, where the protagonist becomes pregnant by a Cadillac. You age all of a sudden. For sure."

PROLOGUE:

Flashback: there's this 10-year-old girl. She's nasty, you can tell. She's sitting in the back, the father is driving. She is being a pain, she unfastens the seatbelt, the father snaps, they crash. She cracks her head open. They operate on her, put a titanium plate in her skull. TITANIUM.

BEGINNING:

She is now in her thirties, working as a stripper in a MAD MAX-style bar, among cars and unsavory characters.

She is mad as a hatter, kills people... she screws a Cadillac and gets pregnant (nannimoretti already mentioned it)

10-15 minutes of visual shock have passed, an infernal whirlwind, the zenith of the massacre has already been reached... and now? She will become a missing boy and be adopted by the (psychopathic) father of the boy who disappeared 10 years ago... easy, right?

Now, I could delve into the convoluted “explanations” by film critics that I've skimmed through as I prepare here.

Speculations, directorial intents, allegories, symbolism, metaphor. The director has a lot to say too...

But I won’t do it, it’s not my turf. I'll let that stuff settle, then come back to it later. In my head, not here.

Anyway, if you're not into it, if disbelief doesn’t get suspended, you might not like it, you might say mavvaffanculovah! and continue watching with a twisted mouth, half-twisted yourself on the couch, mumbling your legitimate doubts.

If, on the other hand, you merge with the TITANIUM, then you will take a nightmare journey into this remarkable body-horror that recalls the cinema of Cronenberg (Crash, Brood, The Fly) and Refn (the masterpiece THE NEON DEMON) but with its own identity, amidst fire and flames, tears and pain, with a magnificent soundtrack.

Alexia, (Agathe Rousselle) and Vincent (Vincent Lindon), you won't forget them.

I watched it straight through, without pausing, not even to pee, as if I were in a cinema, and I wished it would never end.

Hats off (sti cazzo de francesi).