Titane joins Pulp Fiction, Shoplifters, and Parasite, among many other great films, as a Palme D’Or winner of the Cannes Film Festival, the fest’s greatest prize. Gotta love a metal for metal, as titane means “titanium” in French. Metal certainly plays a heavy role in Titane, directed by previous Palme D’Or winner Julia Ducournau (Raw), as large chunks of the movie take place at auto shows or near fire engines. Gorgeous, luscious, red painted full figured fire engines.
You might be asking yourself what the f*ck are you talking about? Well, while we all might appreciate a beautiful Ferrari, Ducati, etc, Alexia (an amazing Agathe Rousselle) bonds with the metal more closely than most. Due to a horrible car accident as a kid, her body is held together by “titane” plates all over, making her part metal. Alexia dances at auto shows, which make her a star because of how provocative she dances for her metallic kindred spirts. This attracts the eye of several lustful men and women, who become infatuated with Alexia, for which she has only misunderstanding and contempt for those human feelings she lacks. She drifts in and out of connections with people/places until she ends up with Vincent (Vincent Lindon), a firefighter who believes Alexia is his long lost child from years ago.
Ducournau’s stories famously take strange roads and arrive at stranger conclusions. Titane follows that same road less traveled. In this case, Alexia shows in the first half of the movie that her only real passionate relationships are with machines and metal; people on the whole are unsatisfying or nuisances, especially when they really don’t understand Alexia’s metallic bond. This forces Alexia to lash out, sometimes violently, at people who try to connect with her, or especially when they hurt her. So when we meet Vincent, we initially think things are going to end poorly for this naive macho doofus who thinks he’s found his long lost kid. What follows is Ducournau’s gift: against all odds, the pair of twisted, broken individuals organically create a strange, warped bond that helps the other trust enough to reveal the depths of their personal delusions/depravities. I was simultaneously repulsed at and elated by Alexia/Vincent’s relationship, a gift only talented artists like Ducournau or Guillermo Del Toro can get away with because they look deeper than the surface for their stories.
The reason the movie works though is Ducournau’s lead actress, Agathe Rousselle, in her feature film debut. What a daring, juicy role the untested Rousselle is forced to take on! Rousselle has all sorts of physical, mental, and emotional transformations she goes through, sometimes on a scene to scene basis, handling each transition gracefully and daringly head on, to the point she’s unrecognizable by the end of the movie. Rousselle does an amazing job selling her awkward nature toward human feelings, but she also slowly opens up to Vincent Lindon as the story goes on, showing that there are feelings underneath that toughened exterior. The veteran French actor Lindon knows his role here, and helps bring out the best in Rousselle as their relationship forms and deepens onscreen.
Titanium is shiny, flexible, and hardened. Titane, and its creator Julia Ducournau, can also be described similarly. The movie’s real mettle is its fearless director, of which Ducournau is one of the most fearless directors out there. But come on Cannes, 2 Palme D’Ors for a French director? Some might accuse you of home advantaging the situation! Wait…that might trigger Alexia and send her after me. Nevermind! I take it back!