The Fantasy of Horror

Titane, the most awkward serial killer story you’ll ever watch, with direction of Julia Ducournau, got combined with the unique aura of Agathe Rouselle and won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. The film, which turns into an experience to watch, focuses on sex, blood and the human body.

The main issue of Ducournau, who shows that she will include many scenes that will disturb the audience from the first second, is actually to tell the birth of an unrequited love. We watch how two people, a father and a son, alone and alienated, hold on to each other. Although it may sound like a soft family story, fetishism and humanism are among the main tools Ducournau chose for the movie.

The most memorable sequence of the movie, is the scar on the head of our main character, Alexia where you feel the tension in your whole body but doesn’t stop you from continuing to watch it. We see that Alexia, who got a titanium plate on her head as a result of an accident as a child, has grown into a very provocative dancer after the first scene. Although the venue where she dances is perfectly secure, the director, who, while watching the dilemma of Alexia’s unpredictable life outside, also touches the male gaze in the place where our character dances and starts making us feel Ducournau’s issues about gender and misogyny.

Obviously the beginning of the movie is quite strong. With the women dancing on the cars, the choice of venue, the use of light and bright colors, the director creates very industrial and mortal visuals. However, in the next scenes, we watch this industrialism slowly giving its way into instincts and human nature. While we try to understand the reason for Alexia’s impulsiveness, we can actually also reconcile her relationship with her family.

The director narrates the murder series in an unusually realistic and uncensored way from the first moment. On the other hand, surreal images Ducournau uses, take the place from  reality from time to time, but is never used uncontrollably to get the viewer closer to a fantastic world. We watch very extraordinary killings with fairly ordinary objects; a hairpin, piercings, a classic Cadillac and a bandage are the most memorable.

We come to the part where the film, which have many disturbing scenes, slowly evolves. Our character, who is alienated from her own body, is stressed, tense and calm as well as in fear all at once. Our character, who lives in an inhuman way quite naturally, begins to push the limits of her body’s limits with her search for identity, towards the later minutes of the movie. We see with ‘Adrien’, who tries to hide her pregnant belly by bandaging it, how much the limit of the human body can be pushed in the most uncomfortable way.

Although the film, in which the horror elements predominate, is mostly horrible, when we look at its general framework, it is a story of unconditional love. In the film, which tells a hectic story that is dragged into turbulent series of events, physicality definitely has a weight that leaves the story behind. As Ducournau said in an interview; love is actually so powerful because it is so monstrous.

After the rising adrenaline and the shock wave that comes with Titane, we leave you with our playlist.