TITANE directed by Julia Ducournau (France, 2021)
“An auto-crash can be more sexually stimulating than a pornographic picture” – William Burroughs (From the preface to The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard)
While conventional cinema barely scratches the surface of the psychopathology of sexual relationships. ‘Titane’ dares to go deeper and the results are a heady mix of disturbing realism and rampant absurdism. The violence is stylised yet gruesome; the tenderness is awkward yet credible.
The singular fate of Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) is to be more turned on by the gleaming metal of cars than the flesh of humans. As a steamy, sensual dancer she dry humps Cadillacs and when the showtime is over she climaxes in the back seat of one of these vehicles to bring a new meaning to the term auto-eroticism. Later, she literally bleeds motor engine oil.
She has a prominent tattoo on her chest denoting the title of Charles Bukowski’s book of poetry : “Love is a dog from hell.” This gives fair warning that she is not of a romantic disposition. Things end badly for those who enter her intimate space. You can look but don’t touch.
Bukowski also wrote “there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock” and the pain of Alexia’s isolation is evident. Self-harm is for her a way of life. To say that she is damaged goods would be an understatement. After a childhood car crash, she wears a titanium plate in her head as a badge of honor.
After a brutal killing spree, Alexia finds unlikely solace in the equally troubled Vincent (Vincent Lindon) who becomes a surrogate father figure. Both crave closeness yet their driven natures mean they are forever destined to be loners.
The fetishism towards automobiles is so obviously Ballardian that Ducournau’s vision has inevitably been linked with David Cronenberg’s ‘ Crash’ , a movie which won the Special Jury Prize at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival “for originality, for daring, and for audacity”.
In 2021, Titane won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for the similarly provocative and deliberately polarizing treatment of sex and violence. Aside from obvious affinities with ‘Crash’, it is probable that Cronenberg’s remake of the body horror classic ‘The Fly’ was also an inspiration to Julia Ducournau.
Its plot holes are plain to see but this is filmmaking that is prepared to take risks rather than making do with conventional feel good confections that pass for entertainment. The flaws are evident but the uncompromisingly full-blooded performances of Rousselle and Lindon make this an unmissable treat for lovers of mindfuck movies and an instant cult classic.
In part 12 of his illuminating Channel 4 documentary series on The Story Of Film, Mark Cousins focused on notable directors from around the world like John Sayles in the US and Krzysztof Kieslowski in Poland who were prepared to stand up for worthy, though unfashionable, political causes.
