Contemporary 2021 Selection: Titane (2021)

 Julia Ducournau's "Titane"

Julia Ducournau describes her Palme d'Or winner "Titane" as a love story. The love story here centers on Alexia and Vincent, two characters whose lives are complex and often times disturbing. Both characters seem to go through their own metamorphosis. As Ducournau's narrative takes many shocking and sometimes disturbing twists and turns, it becomes clear that the two characters seem to need each other to weather the madness of their lives. 

In the first scene of the film, Alexia is making engine revving noises as she sits in the backseat of her dad's car while he is driving down the highway. It is apparent that he father is annoyed with her as she desperately tries to get his attention. After taking her seatbelt off, he reaches back to her, only to crash the car in the process. After the accident, Alexia must get a titanium plate in her head due to her injuries. As an adult, Alexia works as a sexed-up showgirl at a motor show. The car she dances on returns later in the night. She enters it naked and has some sort of sexual episode. Ducournau makes it very apparent that the sexual experience is happening between the Alexia and the car itself. This is where we begin our story with the troubled life of Alexia. There seems to be some sort of identification, sexually, between Alexia, and cars. At the 2021 New York Film Festival, Ducournau describes Alexia's sexual experience with the car as a 'nightmare.' The association with these hyper masculine machines creates some sort of frenzied and disturbing reality for Alexia. As a result, Alexia operates as a serial killer. Perhaps her violent episodes are a direct result of the nightmarish fever dream she exists in on a daily basis. She seems to be scorned by her our family, traumatized by her injuries, and degraded by everyone around her. On top of this, the sexual experience with the car has left her with an unusual and supernatural pregnancy - making it apparent that her nightmare will never end. Alexia does not feel secure in our own body and her own existence. As a result, she feels she must antagonize those around her as a reflection of the antagonism she's faced throughout her life. As a result, she is never able to ever feel comfortable with herself, with her body, and with her life.

Due to authorities posting her arrest warrant, Alexia flees her family with her new pregnancy. She poses as a now-adult boy who has been missing for the past 10 years. She wraps her breasts and stomach, shaves her head, and breaks her nose - all to try and look like a boy. The father of the long missing son, Vincent, arrives at the police station and welcomes his apparent son back into his life. Vincent is the head of a fire department, where he leads a group of firemen. Vincent is a very tortured man, whose had to deal with the disappearance of his son for the past decade. He also shoots himself with steroids, only to become immune to them, requiring him to further abuse them. Alexia becomes very turned off by Vincent's possessiveness of her, obviously needing her to fill the void that was left by his son, Adrien. Alexia, now Adrien, decides to try and kill Vincent, adding another to her list of victims. Vincent is able to ward off Alexia, only to make it apparent that he accepts her regardless, even regardless of her attempted murder of him. Alexia leaves, only to come back to him once again - feeling somewhat comforted by his acceptance of her. Vincent's seeming unconditional love for Alexia/Adrien is what begins the shift in the film to a 'love story.' Even as his firefighter crew try and question the identity and nature of Alexia, he shuts them down, refusing to see anything other than the son that he loves unconditionally. His estranged ex-wife comes to see her 'son,' only to realize that she is not who she says she is. She tells Alexia to take care of Vincent, because he needs her.

The two begin to slowly let their guards down, even to the point of Vincent uncovered the truth that his son, Adrien, is actually a pregnant woman named Alexia. He tells her that he doesn't care who she is, to him she is his son. At the end of the film, Alexia dies giving birth to a half-titanium son - the last vestiges of her pained existence. The closing moments of the film see Vincent holding the baby, promising to take care of him/her. 

The portrait Ducournau creates is that of discomfort and restless anger- focused on these two characters who continue to shift their realities and even their very bodies. Alexia's physical form seems to be a core focus of the film. Her titanium plate creates a new self-form, only for that form to go through excruciating changes throughout the film. She is traumatized by her injuries, molested by men and cars alike, is the target of an unwanted and supernatural pregnancy that pains her, large scars mark her all over, gasoline or oil leaks from her breasts, and she even must conform her body to that of a man. The preliminary focus of the body and its many associations of change seems to be a driving thematical force - making the discomfort that Alexia feels as her body is continually subjugated by other people, external factors, and even motorized mechanisms alike. However, regardless of who she is and what happens to her, she has found acceptance with Vincent. Vincent's adamant acceptance of his son and this stranger has granted Alexia a new breath of life, and vice versa. The love the two have for each other and the value they add to each other's life makes their existence more tolerable. The demons, secrets, and shame each possess seem inconsequential to the other person. This love they share, whether familial, companion, or sexual seems to cut right through the horror and terror they experience; it also cuts through the horror and terror the film puts on the audience. As Ducournau shapes her narrative around shock and discomfort, terrorizing the viewer around every unforeseen corner, the shock and terror become far more palatable with the antidote of Alexia and Vincent's love and caring. The titane suggested by the title of the film, as defined by the plot as: a metal highly resistant to heat and corrosion, with high tensile strength alloys - seems to become their bond at the end of the film. Their love and acceptance of each other, regardless of their shames and tormented psyches, becomes the strength that allows them to become highly resistant to their suffering. Their bond becomes the Titane itself.