Titane is not a movie for the faint of heart. Replete with violence and body horror that is as gruesome as it is bizarre, the film, written and directed by Julia Ducournau, has a few intriguing themes, but its story is muddied and sometimes empty as it veers off in various directions. When its focus is on Agatha Rousselle’s Alexia and the lack of control she has over her own body, Titane digs a bit deeper. However, the film’s true weakness is in its inability to explore Alexia as a person, keeping things vague while centering the extreme body horror aspects.
Alexia (Rousselle) has a fascination with cars from an early age. Following an accident that leaves her with a titanium plate in her head, Alexia shows affection towards the car instead of being angry, kissing and hugging it after leaving the hospital. As an adult, Alexia is a dancer at a car show. After dancing atop one of the cars one night, Alexia, who has also killed several people, has sex with the vehicle and finds herself pregnant shortly thereafter. After a murder spree gone wrong, Alexia goes into hiding, breaking her nose and taping down her breasts and pregnant belly in a bid to masquerade as Adrien, the son of fire chief Vincent (Vincent Lindon) who went missing at the age of seven.
The film can be hollow, not just in story, but because it’s hard to grasp exactly what drives Alexia, a dancer who loves automobiles and who is also a killer. She barely speaks throughout the film and she’s so busy moving from one place to the next or hiding for fear of getting caught that the film bypasses the emotional contextualization that would have made Titane more coherent and layered. Alexia has a distant relationship with her parents and her father seems put off by her behavior, though it’s easy to see that even he can’t figure out what to make of his daughter. To that end, Alexia is an enigma and the film’s reliance on her baser instincts can be frustrating, undermining her story and character development. Titane seems more interested in how far it can take its story — how violent, horrific, weird, and excessive can it get before the audience is forced to look away? Too often, the film values style over substance, engaging with its body horror more than it does its main character’s interiority.
While the film gains some momentum in its second half, the story doesn’t feel cohesive because it’s being pulled in various directions. Alexia as a murderer is barely explored and it’s hard to tell why she starts or the reasons behind some of her cold-blooded kills. To some extent, however, the film is about putting on a performance, be it Alexia dancing erotically atop a car or hiding and maiming her body to pass herself off as Adrien. It’s when Alexia escapes her previous world and enters Vincent’s that the film actually gets deeper. Alexia loses much of the freedom and control she had before, with the lonely Vincent working extra hard to ensure “Adrien” never leaves after having to live without his son for ten years. As Adrien, Alexia is forced to engage with men in a different way than during her dancer days. As a woman, men wanted ownership over her body, which is exemplified when she is aggressively followed and physically attacked by a male admirer who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
In the role of Adrien, Alexia commanded a different level of attention that was no less about the way she looked. Vincent’s firefighter coworkers stared too long, made comments, and otherwise elevated the level of discomfort Alexia felt. The only person her appearance wasn’t important to was Vincent, who seemingly wanted to remain under the illusion of Adrien being back that he willfully ignored Alexia’s true appearance. To that end, Titane certainly tangles with gender dynamics and the ways in which Alexia’s body is perceived, controlled, and used in different spheres. The one thing that reads loud and clear about Alexia is her feelings regarding her pregnancy; she doesn’t want to be pregnant and tries to terminate the pregnancy at various points to no success, with Ducournau showing, in yet another way, the lack of control Alexia often has when it comes to making decisions about her body.
In these instances, Titane’s themes shine through. However, the film isn’t balanced enough, wanting to tackle gruesome body horror over character and story development. That turns it into more of a spectacle, especially in the first half, with the film leaning into its violence and style without allowing the audience to understand where Alexia is coming from. The film’s eccentricities, such as Alexia’s body leaking automobile fuel, might not be for everyone. And though Titane’s biggest accomplishment might just be how ambitious it is, its use of shock value ultimately undermines the story it’s trying to tell.
Titane is playing in theaters as of October 1, 2021. The film is 108 minutes long and is rated R for strong violence and disturbing material, graphic nudity, sexual content, and language.
