Titane (2021)

Here's the thing, dear readers: Titane is a watershed moment for me and this little journal of mine, as well as for horror filmmaking in the New '20s. When you're done with it, you will either love or loathe the film's attempts to make the audience feel uncomfortable and unmoored from genre expectation, no question about that. It's a film that flies in the face of traditional Hollywood screenwriting wisdom, and not because it dares to kill off characters arbitrarily, wink and nod at the viewer, or even because common character archetypes and cliches are turned on their head: it manages to create something unlike anything ever seen in film by taking several extreme story elements that seem to come straight out of the exploitation and body horror genres, and twisting them in tasteful, fascinating ways to create something new and utterly gripping from beginning to end that is always pushing boundaries and not just with simple shock tactics either (looking at you Vigo Mortensen)

Our story opens with darkly comedic scenes of depravity and clumsy-yet-gruesome violence that announce the film's lack of consideration for 'rules.' We're often meant to be sickened and disturbed by our protagonist's actions, which makes for a hard sell from the beginning, but Titane knows what it wants and it wants an adventurous audience that craves something different: one that can cast aside its expectations of what a horror film should be and just let the movie and its ideas take over, no matter how initially shocking. We must trust the person at the head of everything, and director Julia Ducournau is a proven genius when it comes to human horror. This story, however, contains nowhere near the same level of metaphor as Raw did, and it would almost feel like anti-establishment avant-garde chaos, if it weren't for the incredible consideration and genuine pathos behind the filmmaking. In short, it's well-crafted and constructed with far more care than an initial viewing might suggest.

No, the film isn't really about an insane woman getting it on with a car and becoming pregnant, despite what you may have heard. Yes, that happens in the movie, but it happens within the first fifteen minutes. In the broadest possible sense, and without spoiling anything, this is a film about a psychopathic killer learning what it means to be human: to love and care for another person and to make sacrifices for them, to bring life into the world instead of erasing it and, most importantly, to belong. The film metamorphosizes itself many times over as it goes on, to the point where it may quite easily lose some in the audience. Grotesque violence and twisted maternal imagery give way to melodrama and a beating human heart that actually managed to make me shed a few tears at the end, but its mean-spirited and nasty opening bits will undoubtedly leave many initially feeling cold. Others will just be uncomfortable with it: with its subject matter, and its unorthodox writing. The niche it fills is quite small then, but for adventurous fans of cinema, this is perhaps the holy grail; something initially shocking and schlocky that manages to transcend the horror genre and become a genuine work of art.

While this may sound chaotic, and indeed it might initially feel so, the truth is is that the film relies on a rock-solid structure that, unconventional as it may be, props the story up perfectly. The first forty-five minutes set up everything that will happen in the last hour, and as the film comes to a close, we see images and motif from the first half of the film, like little reminders of a previous life, that illustrate of how much things have changed since the opening moments. It's like Watchmen in its perfectly symmetrical storytelling, but in its two-act structure and overall strangeness, I find myself reminded most of Lost Highway. Still, this film feels like more than the sum of its parts after its over. It's a work of seemingly-effortless originality: an assertion that there are, indeed, new things under the sun if one stops resigning themselves to mediocrity. Hopefully, this film will perform well because it would prove that modern audiences aren't the idiots studio executives think they are and that yes, they will sit through a movie that doesn't contain one single 'save the cat' moment or even constant signposting of what lies ahead. For those outgoing and brave souls among you that love theme parks and roller coasters in particular, why would settle for bland and predictable films? I hate rollercoasters, but in the comfort of my home, watching a film, I'm really up for anything as long as it's well-made, and sometimes I wish others were as willing to give themselves over to the things they watch. But hey, different strokes.

Nevertheless, I look forward to the next time I have the privilege of having all my assumptions about storytelling challenged like this again. It was a truly eye-opening and eyebrow-raising good time the likes of which don't come about often. For the dedicated weirdos and freaks of the wild side of filmmaking, stop what you're doing and watch this now; for casual fans of horror, consider trying it with the understanding that it isn't going to deliver on simple thrills and easy chills. Rather, it takes effort to appreciate and love, but it rewards your investment ten-fold with an experience unlike anything you've seen before.