Titane

Year:  2021

Director:  Julia Ducournau

Screenplay:  Julia Ducournau

Starring:  Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Garance Marillier, Laïs Salameh

Running Time:  108 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Alexia (Rousselle) is a dancer who has a titanium plate in her skull, following a car accident when she was a child.  Disturbingly obsessed by cars, she is also responsible for a series of murders.  After a particularly brutal killing spree, Alexia finds herself on the run, and hides out by disguising herself and posing as the missing son of fire captain Vincent (Lindon), whose son went missing ten years earlier aged seven.  Alexia's attempts to keep her disguise are further complicated by her advancing pregnancy, and a series of increasingly disturbing and bizarre symptoms.

French writer-director Julia Ducournau made something of a splash with her debut film, the cannibal horror film Raw (2016), and in this, her second film, really comes into her own as one of the most original and striking directors in modern horror.  This surreal and disturbing slice of body horror tips a hat to directors such as David Cronenberg (Videodrome (1983) and Crash (1996)) and Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1987) and Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1991), but it really is it's own thing.  In her debut film role, journalist and model Agathe Rousselle gives a startling, and mostly dialogue free  performance as the serial killer with a car fetish, alternately terrifying and vulnerable.  Vincent Lindon is also impressive as the sometimes sympathetic and sometimes threatening fire captain who believes Alexia to be his missing son.  This is a tough film to watch at times, it's graphic and some scenes are genuinely shocking, but it is powerful and there are some beautiful as well as bizarre and nightmarish images that you might not be able to shake from your mind, however much you may want to.  There is some humanity and heart to the film and the characters, however terrible their actions, are treated with a degree of compassion, and the whole experience is emotional as well as shocking and disturbing.  

Agathe Rousselle in Titane

Raw

Year of Release:  2016

Director:  Julia Ducournau

Screenplay:  Julia Ducournau

Starring:  Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Naït Oufella, Laurent Lucas

Running Time:  99 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Lifelong vegetarian Justine (Marillier) starts her first term at a veterinary school.  During a hazing ritual, Justine succumbs to peer pressure and eats some meat for the first time.  Shortly afterwards, she develops bizarre physical symptoms, and a disturbing craving for raw meat.  

This disturbing twist on the cannibal horror genre marked the feature debut from French writer/director Julia Ducournau.  This mixes college drama with a deeply unsettling horror element.  I have seem many horror films, and even I winced from the screen in some parts.  The thing is that the violence looks real, it's not over the top gore, it looks intimate and painful.  Garance Marillier is wonderful as Justine, moving from wide-eyed innocent to self-hating cannibal without ever losing the audience's sympathy.  Ella Rumpf plays Alex, Justine's older sister, who guides her into the cannibal world.  Rabah Naït Oufella plays Justine's gay friend, who she develops a disturbing fixation for.  as the virginal Justine develops her obsession with flesh, so she becomes increasingly fixated on sex, which really does work.  The grim tone is leavened by some very dark humour.  The film is very well made, and well performed, but the overwhelmingly bleak tale makes it difficult to like, although there is much to admire.

Garance Marillier in Raw