Titane: Un Review De Nympho
A three part film review of Titane (2021) — Written by Iman(Kru’23), Hasyir (Kru’23), and Chris (Kru’23)
Confessions
Written by Anonymous
Man I wanna be a car so bad. I want her to dance on top of me. I don’t mind dying in a housefire if that means I can glimpse her just once before I die. Even though she’s already the best firefighter I’ve ever seen there’s one fire she can’t put out and that’s the fire within me. Let me die glorious.
I don’t mind getting in a car accident if that means I can have a piece of metal rod inserted into my body. I wanna go on a killing rampage and get pregnant doing it.
Titane: the male urge to become a car
Written by Iman (Kru’23)
The male gaze is defined by putting women into positions of male desires. While certainly the 2021 Palme d’or winner is far from it, many scenes of the bodily horrors are horny and confusing enough to be misunderstood and be put within the context of male gaze. Cars (the object, not the film by John Lasseter) are one of the ultimate play toys of men from all ages and eras ever since the first car was manufactured in 1885. Titane (2021) opens with images of a group of women dancing sensually on top of cars, with a dialogue further summarizing the scene’s core horniness, “touch with your eyes”. This untouchability of cinema rises questions of the medium’s role for enabling men’s venture to the world of erotics.
One of the scenes that further my understanding of the deservedness of the Palme D’or that is Titane is the sexual intercourse scene, particularly the car intercourse scene. The car, the symbol of male testosterone, demands an act of sex by banging the door of a girl in the middle of a shower. Not taking away from the message of starveness of familial love, what does that say of us men? We men have been set boundaries from the beginning that this film is a safe zone, perhaps even to say to educate us. Now, to be represented by an inanimate object we still objectify the opposite gender, ironic. Blame the car, not the women.
While certainly the act of longing for an intercourse is of human nature, there is a limitation that civilized society has imposed that is also of human nature. Is it not human for a person to want to feel safe on a day-to-day basis? That’s why we should all just transform into a car, the male urge to become a car. This was all predicted by the visionary director Michael Bay with his Transformers series.
Titane: a Prelude to Understanding the Lore of Transformers (One)
Written by Hasyir (Kru’23)
Julia Ducournau’s breakthrough to the mainstream world since Raw, and it is just as weird, if not, weirder. Titane is the kind of movie you’ll expect at least a laugh or two when watching because of its commitment to its theme and message. Although funny at times (both unintentional and intentional), Titane managed to deliver some hard-punching messages and allegories about acceptance, societal normalcy, negligence, parenthood, and so much more. Because of its very extreme presentation; Cronenberg-esque body horror mixed with Argento’s neon horror and camp, you really don’t have to wonder why some people dislike it. It can feel very overwhelming and like too many themes and messages were being put out on screen for only a short period of time resulting in what some may see as incoherent and even inconsistent writing. But the way I see it, Julia already knew what she was going for and knew exactly what she was doing; we don’t get many directors like her so when I see one, I just know they’re not playing around only for pushing the extreme for the sake of pushing it but it may just be the only way to get people to listen to you, even if, some people redeem it as incomprehensible. At the end of the day, Titane still managed to be one of the most outstanding films in the 2020s.
In the same topic as erotica, sexuality is one of the main strong points of the film or what Julia wanted to convey: its extremities and sometimes interchangeability. I know, it’s about a woman who likes to kill people for the sake of thrills, but since when has it that horror (especially body horror) not become a medium for the recurring social and personal topic that is identity and sexuality? The main character had a seemingly terrible childhood, judging from the opening, even after she became an adult, she’s still haunted by the thought of it, now the trauma embodied itself in the titanium plate she got from the car accident with her father. The titanium plate is something that she won’t be able to remove for the rest of her life; such as in the case of childhood trauma or trauma in general, Titane takes those irreversible mental damages into a literal reminder of them: the titanium plate. She’s holding her hatred for her parents since she was just a child for neglecting her. Back to the topic of sexuality, which is depicted by the very detailed and graphic sex scenes in the film, disturbing erotica because she was literally having sex with cars. As if she’s heavily sexually attracted to non-sentient beings that are cars, is she attracted to the idea of interchangeability or is she able to identify within the concept of cars themselves and see it through the lens of transsexuality (since cars are modifiable)? All questions are answered by yourself (or by an interview the filmmaker did), but that may seem to be one of the main themes of why she’s having sex with cars and sexually attracted to actual cars. It may be a rebellious act, or simply just another step to get to know herself. Anyway, watch Transformers One.
