Titane

Here's this year's Palme d'Or winner and it certainly underlines Cannes' predilection for 'envelope-pushing' films. Broadly, it's a sweet story of two people who are searching for love, it's just that it's dressed up in body horror and violent killings. Don't let that put you off (unless you find long, bone hairpins in orifices beyond the pale), because this film has some pretty fine things going for it. 

Director, Julia Ducournau, in only her second feature, shows a steady, confident hand. Oddly, for a film that's so provocative, she lets the audience assume details and, maybe reluctantly, accept certain events. Alexia, played by newcomer Agathe Rouselle, is involved in a car accident in her childhood, and is patched up with a titanium plate in her head. Fast forward 10 years or so and she's an exotic dancer at underground car shows (least, that's what it looks like). After one such show, a sleazy dude tries it on her, much to his detriment, and thus begins (or perhaps it had already begun?) Alexia's sloppily brutal spree. On the run, with Un Flic closing in, she - stay with me - convinces Vincent Lindon's Vincent that she's his missing son, gone for 10 years but now returned, scarred but alive. Oh, I've forgotten the car sex thing, and I don't mean sex IN a car, but.... anyway, aside from convincing people that she's a young man, she must try to conceal a growing baby, through the means of some tightly wound bandages. Actually, now that I write about it all, I can kind of see why some filmgoers fainted and/or vomitted during screenings. It's probably worth mentioning that I did find myself curling a lip and feeling slightly uneasy at times. 

Titane has some special scenes, specifically one of young firemen dancing in slo-mo to a fantastic song (Future Islands - "Light House"). It's one of those moments of repose in a film like this that can act as a super mellow counter-balance, and it's top notch film-making. Vincent Lindon is great, as usual, in his strange role of not seeing the nose on his own face (is this even a saying?), and his relationship with Alexia (or, as he knows her, Adrien) is the weird heart of the film.

This is a confronting, often shocking film, and while I didn't love it in its entirety, it had enough moments to satisfy, if only for the utter ballsiness of it. 

Titane opens at Luna cinemas on Nov 25th.

See also:

The missing person element reminded me of the uneven, but thoroughly watchable The Imposter (2012), directed by Bart Layton. For more great work by Vincent Lindon, check out Fred Cavayé's Anything For Her (2008).