After suffering a head injury as a child in a car accident, Alexia (Agathe Rouselle) still shows the scars from where a titanium plate was fused into her skull.  Making a living as a dancer at car shows, one night a male fan follows her to her car and forces himself on her.  This encounter triggers a fateful chain of events and Alexia is on the run until she finds refuge with Vincent (Vincent Lindon), an aging fire chief seeking to find purpose in his own broken life. 

After winning the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her previous film, Raw (2016), Julia Docournau made Titane for Neon which would go on to win the Palme d’Or at this year’s iteration of the prestigious Frech festival and making her only the second female director to win that award.  The film quickly became the talk of the trades for its daring, brutal, gruesome, and downright strange concept. Titane follows a story very much in Docournau’s wheelhouse with many of her previous works focusing on deconstructing body image and changes to the human form.   

Rouselle has the burden of carrying this 108-minute film in the almost silent role of Alexia. Through the first act of the film, it is really hard to get on her level.  Not only do we still need to be sympathetic enough to stay engaged with her after a senseless murder spree, but she has the added hurdle of selling the strangest aspect of Titane; that she was impregnated by the car she was dancing on during the exhibition.  The entirety of the first act of Titane is a really tough nut to crack into as it is operating on a high level of outright nonsense that requires extensive suspension of disbelief. 

It is not until the second act when Vincent takes in Alexia that the film finds it footing and becomes a much more coherent piece.  Taking on a more human approach, the relationship between the two is strange to watch, but captivating enough to keep us invested and see where it goes.  The tonal shift is welcomed, though it makes the events of the first twenty or so minutes seem even more absurd. Those events are rarely brought back up in any real context outside of the visual marks left behind on Alexia’s body.  By not addressing the action that came before, it muddies the overall goal of the film as it makes what was very deliberately and carefully thought-out gory sequences seem like it was included for the shock value rather than narrative importance. 

The first act’s absurdity also makes it difficult to suss out the deeper meaning of the film. Docournau makes sure that we know everything that is happening to Alexia during her mechanical pregnancy is happening for real – it is not in her head, it is not fantasy.  It feels like she is trying to make a statement about identity and body autonomy but never quite forms her argument.  Looking at how her camera captures Alexia and Vincent’s bodies in harsh and unforgiving light to accent the marks and blemishes on their skin compared to the more erotically charged visuals she presents in the opening when Alexia dances on the hood of the car or later with the young, chiseled men of the fire company hold a rave and dance shirtless together, it is all done very purposefully, however the reasoning is lost somewhere between the page and the screen.  Her direction is very deliberate, but wrapped up in the first act antics, any attempt at a meaningful discussion afterwards is thrown out the window given the wholly inaccessible approach. 

Thankfully, Titane, when it is not a bloody mess, is beautiful to look at.  Ruben Impens’ cinematography holds a few surprises throughout the film, both in his use of color and the way he chooses to frame the shots.  There is a scene late in the film that is so starkly different than anything we have seen before it that you will not realize you were holding your breath until the image presented fills your lungs with fresh air they desperately need. The tension is never gone, though, as the electronic score by Jim Williams creeps its way into our bodies so that we can feel what is happening.   

While it is true that Titane comes to screens with immense technical prowess, it is hard – if not impossible – to recommend this film with a clear conscience.  Going in with as open a mind as possible and the knowledge that it is okay to look away at times will be the key to getting to the relationship at the heart of the film.  In what becomes a truly affecting and at times heartbreaking arc, Titane can be called a lot of things, but empty or soulless certainly do not apply.