Review Titane: Demon Cadillac Spawn

Watching this file I was struck with the idea that the French love the absurd. I find that good French art and philosophy is often born from some wacky premise meant to upend the viewer and challenge the solid assumption of the ground you stand upon.

This avant-guarde tendency, like all barrier crashing impulses, runs the risk of catastrophic failure… and even when successful, alienates a giant portion of your potential viewership.

What is so treacherous of this image of a pipe? Of course it’s a damn pipe; why are you wasting my time with this nonsense?

The dismissal from the audience can only be over-come if the auteur is so bold that the thumbing their nose creates a vortex strong enough to pull in a requisite portion of the curious.

Well, Titane I think achieves this balance very well. With hyper-violence, erratic imagery, sexually explicit scenes, deeply disturbing and uncomfortable situations, confusing and otherworldly plots lines. It’s a frenetic mix of extremities that surprisingly binds the viewer to a tender and humane portrait.

Consider the purposeful casting of our main character, Alexis, as an inhuman monster; someone who is born wrong. A deviant whose heinous acts seem beyond redemption.

Then consider the subtle touch of her relationship with her father. After Alexis had been absurdly impregnated with what can only be considered chrome semen from a demon Cadillac, we find her sitting on the couch eating a bowl of cereal while watching television. Her father slinks around, clearly uncomfortable with her presence.

He’s not so much in tuned with her psychopathy as he is a cold and distant parent who doesn’t protect and shelter his child. Whether this can be seen as a failing or a reasonable reaction is the question posed to the user.

The graphic nature of the cinematography is both a feast and a clever juxtaposition. It paces perfectly with the movie. The hyper violence is utilitarian and is meant to en-rapture us. And from this over contrasting a strong them of sexual stereo-typing emerges. Men are macho, women are sex objects.

And though it appears obvious at first, we find that our protagonist is neither gay nor straight, and more animal, or possibly machine than human.

Or rather, that is the fundamental question the film posits.

Alexis is clearly an animal at her base, and is confused by human reactions. Maybe not so much heartless as she is untamed, and potentially unloved.

She is also a killer, first justly, then rampantly, destroying any assumption of her humanity.

It is both a plot device, pushing the story along, and a narrative device, helping explain the character’s motivations.

Alexis has a titanium plate embedded on the right side of her head, and the exposed scar resembles a brain. That organic metaphor aligns with a sub-theme of the story, where objects are biological and humans are cold and mechanical.

I am also struck by the raw imagery of her naked body. I feel it is used to punctuate her animal and human frame to prime us for the contrast of the mechanical. This dichotomy of machine vs human, animal instinct vs humanity.

There is no love or care from her father, so she finds identity and sexual gratification from the inanimate. It provides fuel for her animal lust. She later fucks a fire-truck for good measure. Alexis has a type.

The film states things quickly... her relationship with her father is broken, she is a problematic child, she operates in a society that values her body as an object... all of these things justify her actions. Even killing a potential female lover.. this is done to kill your expectation of her as a lesbian and as a human, before rebuilding her into a character deserving empathy.

There are two very difficult scenes where Alexis mutilates herself. The first to end her pregnancy, instigates an instant empathetic response from anyone with a pulse. The second is when she breaks her nose on the bathroom sink to escape the law.