Titane - How to Watch the 2021 Cannes Palme d'Or Winner

French filmmaker Julia Ducournau's sophomore film, the 2021 Cannes Palme d'Or winner Titane, is a viscerally violent and disturbing piece of art. It may not be as easy to digest as some other films in this genre, but it's definitely worth the effort for those who are open to confronting violence and eroticism in film.

What to expect

Julia Ducournau's 2021 Palme d'Or winner is a body horror that combines the gruesome with the tender, exploring themes of gender and sexuality. A follow-up to her debut feature Raw, which dealt with teen parties and brutalist veterinary school, Titane is an increasingly mature work from the French filmmaker.

Taking its title from Jewel Akens' 1964 hit, "Wayfaring Stranger," the film opens with images of a car spinning its wheels and round whirring disks of chrome-lined steel as the radio plays up a tune about being "the girl next door." The protagonist's father (Michael Caine) sits behind the wheel, yelling at her to stop kicking the seatbelt. Her rage is clear; she kicks the back of the seat and the engine veers off course.

As Alexia/Adrien begins her career as a showgirl at a motor show, she starts to feel an overwhelming desire to transform her body into that of another woman. Her body changes become increasingly gruesome, with her nose broken and eye sockets severed, her breasts hidden beneath bindings, and her pregnant body appearing through a plastic tummy. The shocking acts of violence are accompanied by a strong, almost defiant tone that's utterly unsettling to watch.

This is a movie about love and violence; the end result is a violently passionate, deeply touching, and profoundly unsettling story that's full of unexpected moments of extreme physicality, sex, and family dynamics. This isn't a film that's easily explained or explained away, and the ending may leave viewers with questions, but it's a gut-wrenchingly beautiful piece of art that deserves to be viewed.

When watching Titane, it's important to remember that there is a lot more to the film than just the violent and gruesome scenes; in fact, most of the time, the film is much more about the thematic and stylistic explorations than it is about the narrative itself. It's an experiential film that's more akin to the work of the likes of David Cronenberg than it is to the typical horror genre.

The film's most gruesome moment occurs at the beginning of the film, when Alexia undergoes a surgery to remove her titanium implant, but it's not just about the physical trauma; the film is also a meditation on the idea that bodies can be changed and fetishised. It's a theme that comes up several times during the film, including when Alexia's pregnancy progresses and she becomes Adrien.

Thematics

Julia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or-winning Titane is a violent but thoughtful film that explores body horror and gender in an incredibly unique way. This is only the second time a woman has won the top prize at Cannes, and it’s a remarkable achievement.

As a young girl, Alexia (Adele Guigue) is in a car accident that leaves her with a titanium plate fixed to her head. This leads her on a bizarre journey where she becomes a serial killer and car show dancer.

Her twisted body doesn’t seem to belong to her, and dozens of men swarm around her, making advances that reek of desire and control. Her erotic performances involve her dancing on top of cars, and the sexy images we get of her body on top of these vehicles is accompanied by a kind of phantasmagorical ecstasy that is hard to explain in words.

The sex she engages in is often grotesque, but it’s not all that unpleasant. In one scene, she’s writhing on top of a Cadillac and the car bounces up and down in front of her, making her feel like she’s having sex with the vehicle as it spins.

It’s a disturbing image, but the scene also works as a metaphor for her own physicality, and the relationship between her body and the machine she inhabits. It also reveals a strangely nuanced aspect of her story: she’s been impregnated by the Cadillac, and that pregnancy is the catalyst for her killing spree.

This is a film where the extremes are everywhere: blood, violence, sex, delusion, and desire. But embedded within those extremes is also a story about family, love, and finding your identity.

In an interview, Ducournau explained that she wanted to make a film about gender and body horror that is different from other body horror films. This is because she was interested in exploring the idea that people have a hard time finding their own identities, and that they sometimes have to make up for it by doing things that are outside of their comfort zone.

She hoped that she could do that by telling the story of a young girl who becomes a transgender man and then finds love and family in a new life, which would give her hope that there is no need to be afraid of what other people think about her.

Acting

French horror director Julia Ducournau made a name for herself with her controversial, cannibal parable Raw in 2016. But she followed that up with the Palme d’Or winner Titane, a darkly funny and visceral body horror film whose premise is so bonkers it might just be a bit too much for some audiences.

At the centre of the story is Alexia (Agathe Rousselle), who has a titanium plate in her head after a car accident when she was a child. She has a hard time controlling her emotions, but she can find solace in her work as a car show model, simulating erotic encounters with metal and glass.

After a particularly traumatic performance, she kills an overeager fan who attempts to sexually assault her. She then murders his roommate and girlfriends, all of whom are witnesses to the crime.

As her father, Vincent (Vincent Lindon) tries to get his daughter back, their strange relationship develops into something more complex than just the sweet, developing parent/child bond. Then, a string of mysterious murders begin to unfold around the city and the two are forced to confront their past.

Despite its twisted and darkly funny premise, Titane manages to be a deeply touching and moving piece of filmmaking. It explores themes of gender fluidity, sex and identity, but it's also about love, pain and the human connection.

One of the reasons Titane works is because director Julia Ducournau, along with her actors, Agathe Rousselle and Vincent Lindon, commit to their characters' stories and hone in on them with precision. Both actresses' performances are unmissable, and the results are mesmerising.

The chemistry between Rousselle and Lindon is fascinating to watch, especially during their scenes together. Their interaction reflects both the sweet, developing father/daughter bond, and the cold, psychotic strain of distrust between them.

Their scenes also reveal a lot about their psyches, as well as their personal and social histories. It's a fascinating way to understand the complexities of a complicated situation, and Rousselle and Lindon play it perfectly.

The film is available to stream on Hulu, as well as on Google Play Movies, Vudu, Apple iTunes, Microsoft Store, Redbox, and AMC on Demand. It is not for the faint of heart, but if you are a fan of go-for-broke body horror movies like Malignant and The Brood, then you should definitely see Titane. It will open your mind and leave you with a new appreciation for the nuances of life.

Visuals

The genre of body horror is rife with startling and disturbing imagery surrounding the nuances and horrors of the human body. But the 2021 French film Titane by Julia Ducournau elevates the subgenre by putting its main themes about love and family at the center of this shockingly original and unsettling experience.

As a film that centers on the body and its insidious powers to twist our perception of reality, the visuals in Titane are some of the most stunning I've seen in some time. They are incredibly unsettling and suffocating, but also surprisingly beautiful.

Throughout the film, Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) changes her appearance in some way, whether it's dancing sensually on top of cars, hiding a strange pregnancy or changing her identity to that of a missing boy's. While many of these transformations aren't direct tropes of body horror, they are a reminder that our bodies do change and can be twisted in ways we never imagined.

At the same time, we know that these transformations are her own doing, and her decision to take the risks she does in order to survive is her own personal choice. This is a difficult and complex idea to digest, particularly when the movie makes us question whether these choices would have been made if she had a clearer sense of what her future held.

This question is a central concern of Titane, one that is difficult to address given the film's ferocious intensity. Yet it is also a point of contention that Ducournau does not attempt to address entirely.

In fact, she often doesn't even explain these omissions as much as she does a lack of answers. When a car accident causes Alexia to undergo sexual transformations, for example, we're not told why her body changed or how it was corrected.

Instead, we get a sense that she's in pain. The scene in which her parents are killed is particularly brutal, and the savagery of the murder is accompanied by a sense of anger that can't be squelched.

Those who can't handle these images should steer clear of Titane. But for those who enjoy a cinematic explosion of genres, themes and gorgeous visuals, Titane is worth seeing on the biggest screen possible.