London Film Festival Watch #5
The unofficial prequel to Pixar’s Cars.
Shocked is putting it lightly. Titane is a grotesque, insane trip of a film that deserves to be seen on the big screen in a crowd full of people all experiencing the insanity together. Julia Ducournau really explores the limits of the human body and the malleability of flesh in a horrifyingly beautiful way. Simultaneously making you squirm, wanting to look away from the screen, while also keeping your eyes glued to the horrors of the body. Underneath all the horror though Titane is a wholesome story of found love, and how trauma can bring together people in times of darkness. It’s often though that the tonal dichotomy leaves the film feeling too chaotic for its own good.
Titane tells the story of a woman, Alexia played by Agathe Rousselle, who as a child was in a horrific car accident that causes her to get titanium plates put into her head. Years later we pick up and Alexia is a showgirl for cars and… well after this the insanity ensues. Rousselle delivers one of the most intense, transformative debut performances ever. She’s effortlessly creepy and unnatural while slowly becoming intensely humane as you see more of the emotions that flood her body yet were buried beneath the burdens of trauma. Accompanying her is Vincent Lindon who is equally as fantastic. In his character we explored the idea of masculinity and how toxic the idea that society perpetuates on people is. In this sickly-sweet father pseudo-son relationship, the themes of trauma become themes of collective trauma and how such things can bring people together. Both actors navigate these thematic elements which such care and heart that it makes you question if the twisted relationship is actually intensely sweet.
This film juggles so many dense themes and tackles them all in extremely poignant and careful ways but never sticks the landing on any of them. The horror of transformation and the meat-like nature of human flesh, gender identity both in an external sense and internal one, the damaging effects of toxic masculinity and the psychological effects that trauma has on a human. And while the insights into all these deep themes is thought provoking and appreciated, the film just feels too overstuffed, like the ideas explored here could’ve been explored in multiple films. I’m not one for needing everything explained in a film but there are parts in the film where threads are cut short or never picked up on that just feel like a waste especially when what they’re presenting is so interesting.
In this light, since the film is trying to do a lot, the tonal divide between the first half and the second half is a stark one. The start plays out like a full-blown horror/thriller and the latter half feels more like a drama (minus some scenes). This isn’t really a problem, and to be honest it’s quite refreshing, however when paired with the excessive number of themes that the film is trying to tackle, it just creates a sort of disconnect between when the film starts and finishes. What’s incredibly smart though is the dark humour that runs throughout the film, the film is saturated with it and is expertly executed. In the moments of horror, it creates a small sense of levity, that consequently makes such horrifying scenes even more disturbing. And in the latter half it helps cement this weird but wholesome bond between the main two characters.
If you have the chance to see Titane in a cinema though please do, it’s one of the most intense cinema experiences I’ve had and seeing the insanity with a crowd on the big screen is so fun as you all decide whether to look at the horrors or look away.
★★★★
