Titane (2021)

I really loved the wild ride of Titane, last year's big winner at Cannes, but wow, take note, the road is quite bumpy in this picture of strange extremes and ultraviolence. The various flailing labels applied to it tell part of the story: suspense, drama, horror, sci-fi. Um, OK. Agathe Rousselle is Alexia, a problem child involved in a bad auto accident as a young girl. Part of her skull had to be replaced with titanium. This is about as much explanation as we get for what follows—note it is highlighted in the title too. After the opening credits, we see Alexia has grown up to be a porny exotic dancer at auto shows. The story seems to be operating as a variation on Crash, the J.G. Ballard novel and David Cronenberg movie in which cars and auto accidents are sexualized. However, 50 years on from the novel (and 25 from the movie), fetishizing cars feels more debased as a social value, contaminated, sick. Yet there she is, getting off on the glitzy convention scene, along with all the car salesman types in their suits. The sickness of the auto industry is one sign of how times have changed. Director and cowriter Julia Ducournau seems to know very well what she is doing. Alexia becomes pregnant by one car and soon starts oozing motor oil. Did I mention Titane is body-horror? Well, it is. Alexia is a rip-roaring ultraviolent version of Anne Carlisle's Margaret from Liquid Sky, hip, disaffected, and toxically ironic. She kills people, always for rational reasons, but it's usually over the top and she always seems to have more killing to do. These John Wick bashes are often quite unpleasant though riveting and even entertaining. It's a movie where you find yourself saying "what now?" a lot. The brutality keeps coming until a significant turn at the half, at which point Titane elevates to the insanely inspired implications of one simple and ludicrous plot twist. It ratchets the tension but more importantly it takes the picture to realms where all you can do is gape. My favorite kind of movie. Titane suddenly bursts with tender, provocative ideas about family and sexual identity, fatherhood and motherhood, masculinity and femininity, love and devotion. It's all there to be discovered, so go have a good time, but remember—content warnings, content warnings. Titane has a lot of hooks to trigger. Check DoestheDogDie and approach with all due caution.