Jacked In Reviews ‘Titane’ (2021)

As the movie opens – following a brief tour of the underbelly of an automobile – we see a middle-aged man trying his damnedest to concentrate on the road whilst his young daughter, Alexia, misbehaves in the backseat, continuing to distract him.

Before we know it, she undoes her seatbelt and the Dad skids the car to a halt, causing Alexia’s head to brutally connect with the passenger window. You start to feel like a horrendous human being as a slight grin begins to pull on your face and with that you realize… Julia Ducournau (Raw) has done it again.

The French-Belgian story sees Alexia (Agathe Rousselle), post-accident, years later, with the addition of a titanium plate in her head. Now in her adult years, Alexia seems to have developed quite an erotic fascination with cars (well, most four-wheeled motorized vehicles, in fact) along with extracurricular activities of the serial killing variety.

After getting impregnated by a car (yep!) we follow Alexia on her journey, as she evades capture from the law by assuming a new identity, all the while carrying this potential human-vehicle hybrid inside of her.

Titane: A metal highly resistant to heat and corrosion, with high tensile strength alloys.

Although on its surface, the movie is laced with eroticism, violence and body horror, at its core, Titane is more like that of a family drama.

You’re met with these characters, each broken in their own way and disconnected from the world around them. What starts as selfish identity theft, soon sees two people brought together by their shared loneliness, with brief moments of sheer beauty, even though it’s all blossomed from this horrendous lie. Despite following the lives of these individuals with misguided morals, it tells the story of companionship and how, at times, we want to care for and be cared for by others. Not to mention, how strong unconditional love really is.

A marvellous cast that fit seamlessly into this twisted, darkly comedic fairytale. With visuals that will widen your eyes, a score that will get under your skin and a soundtrack that will raise your heart. All in all, don’t let the outlandish metaphor discourage you from seeing a truly gorgeous film about togetherness and the truly original, desperate struggle of one person’s journey.

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