Titane is the French word for titanium, and a reference to the titanium plate that the protagonist Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) has on the side of her head. As a child, Alexia was in a car accident that smashed her skull. Although she luckily didn't suffer from a brain injury she did end up having a gnarly scar above her ear where the plate was installed. One strange side effect from the accident was that Alexia seemed to develop a sexual attraction to cars.
As an adult Alexia works as a stripper at motor shows, dancing seductively on top of cars. She has a lot of obsessive male fans and after one of her shows one follows her and tries to sexually assault her. Alexia defends herself by killing the man with a hair pin to the ear. Turns out that for the past few months Alexia has been moonlighting as a serial killer and that man picked the wrong woman to mess with.
It is at this point in the film that the narrative dives off into the deep end, embracing a surreal body horror that is equally fascinating and unsettling. After the murder Alexia takes a shower in the backstage area of the motor show. A car beckons to her and she goes inside naked and somehow has sex with the vehicle. This sexual encounter gets Alexia pregnant, but with what? Her vagina and breasts leak inky black motor oil, and her belly swells. What is growing inside?
Alexia is an androgynous looking person, which comes in handy when she is on the run from the law after committing even more murders. She pretends to be the lost son of Vincent (Vincent Lindon), a fire captain. Ducournau explores body horror through gender dysphoria as Alexia alters her body in agonizing ways to pass as a man. She binds her breasts and bulging belly everyday, and as the film progresses we see the cuts and chafing that this incurs. She breaks her own nose violently to give it a masculine appearance. Her transformation is bathed in blood and pain, and her unintended pregnancy has stolen her body autonomy.
Vincent is the other half of Titane, a man so consumed by grief and regret that he punishes his body daily by injecting steroids and doing grueling workouts. It is implied that his son was not actually missing but that he died and that Vincent would not accept it. His inability to save his son emasculated him and his entire persona now is a grotesque parody of alpha male bravado. On the inside, however, he wants nothing more than to be tender and caring, and he accepts Alexia as his "son" out of love. At its heart this is what Titane is about: wanting to care for others and have them care about you. Despite all of the exploitation trappings, this is a film about redemption and moving on, letting go of the past that haunts us and embracing a new life.
On a technical level Titane dazzles with incredible lighting and fantastic editing. Jim Williams returns as the film's composer having previously worked with Ducournau on her debut film Raw (2016). His score is lush and foreboding but also peppered with some anachronistic songs that give certain scenes staying power. Agathe Rousselle's breakout performance as Alexia is mesmerizing, embracing sensuality and blistering anger in equal parts but tempering both of these states with a soft fragility peeking through.
I suspect that the way Titane is constructed might be confusing to many people because the first half of the film is somewhat grounded, then it flips to magical realism and allegory in the second half. This muddles the message of the film, but at the same time it is a bold and gutsy choice.
--Michelle Kisner