Titane

Well, that was darn psycho! After the initial shock and disgust, I recovered a bit and ended up rooting for this monstrous creature with a titanium plate in its head. I dare say that Julia Ducournau has achieved something unprecedented. She has served the audience a nutritious, suspenseful and weighty movie with a plot which is impossible to guess in advance. And I consider that a real masterpiece, especially nowadays. (80%) (04.07.2022)

Julia Ducournau is certainly a new strong, controversial and interesting French face who follows in the footsteps of Gaspar Noe and her signature is very much felt here. There is also some Cronenberg-style body horror, which is fine, but unfortunately there were some passages that didn't do much for me, especially the gender theme. During the first half hour, however, I was downright enthusiastic. There was lots of nudity, eroticism, violence, a cool murder that reminded me of the early exploitation films from France, and I was already thinking “damn yeah France is gack!” The unconventional car sex and the subsequent WTF impregnation is definitely a blast. Unfortunately most of the second half of the film isn't so great, in fact everything I enjoyed about the first half is missing. The finale picks it up a bit with an interesting birth, but it was weird rather than interesting and fun most of the time. Too bad, if the film had kept the pace of the opening half hour, I probably would have walked away very happy. A provocative and quite original film in its message, but unrewarding for the audience. Story 3/5, Action 1/5, Humour 1/5, Violence 3/5, Fun 3/5 Music 3/5, Visuals 3/5, Atmosphere 3/5, Suspense 2/5, Emotion 1/5, Actors 3/5. 6/10. (21.10.2021)

Titan is a manifestation of Linda Williams’s theory of the principal identity of melodrama, horror and pornography as physical genres built on the depiction and evocation of physical reactions manifested in the given bodily fluids. Julie Ducournau’s second feature film attempts to combine the three genres into a single whole. The heart of the film comprises a melodramatic arc of the search for happiness and forgiveness and the dissolution of one’s own ego in the arms of another person. But the typical elements of this genre, such as grotesque kitsch and surreal, exaggerated emotionality, are replaced by horror and pornographic grotesqueness of distorted visions, fetishes and excessive physicality aimed at destruction and pleasure. Like a proper melodrama, however, Titan remains simultaneously exaggerated and hyper-realistic, naïve and serious, but it is also funny and touching. Julie Ducournau’s potentially schizophrenic vision is held together as a cohesive unit by Ruben Impens’s stunning camerawork, which captures the film’s most sensitive and bizarre moments like a vivid dream. (13.10.2021)

Compared to the director's debut Raw, which was a slightly dull, bland, coming-of-age horror drama spiced up a bit with some light cannibalism, Titane is definitely a step up from that. It really isn't boring, the extravagant visual aspects work, and the bizarre element is strong. It is spiced up with some light "body horror", and the plot turns at one point by some 270°, as if it turned into a completely different movie. Titane is a movie that is a cocktail of different genres and is definitely not going to be to everyone’s taste. (21.10.2021)

Bravo Julia! You’re a tough girl, really cool. Satisfied? Because I guess that's the main message you wanted to convey with this movie... A hilariously awkward and ridiculous pose that pissed me off even more intensely than Raw. Next time I'll avoid Julia in the cinema, we don't get along. (06.10.2021)