Titane in the Membrane
Film
Julia Ducournau brings us her sophomore project, Titane, after rousing success of her first feature film Raw, which follows the life of Alexia (Agathe Rouselle) after she is in a car crash as a child which requires her to have a titanium plate put in her head.
Now there's a lot to unpack in this film. There's also a lot within it that sticks with you for a long time due to the visceral nature of what you're watching. This is attributed to Ducournau's stylistic approach, she did the same thing with Raw and is an effective way to get you to think critically about what you're looking at. And while there's certainly a lot of "shock value" to some of the story, its what's behind the scenes that makes Titane so much more than just shock and awe.
Ducournau has somehow someway put together a film that simultaneously left my jaw dragging on the floor and gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside???
After a movie about a serial killer that gets pregnant having sex with a car?!?!?!?
This alone is the most impressive feat of Ducournau's filmmaking. At a surface level one could say that her films are just full of "shock value" and disturbing to watch. But Ducournau is able to masterfully construct a story, and characters that yes are extremely shocking, but have layers to them that you never could've anticipated.
While you never really can sympathize with Alexia throughout Titane on a personal level, you're able to really feel and sympathize for what's happening to her body. A lot of the credit goes to Rouselle's acting but even more so to Ducournau's writing and direction. She is able to get you to feel sorrow, pity, anger, remorse and who even knows what else I felt watching Alexia go through so much pain and turmoil.
Vincent (Vincent Lindon) is another fantastic character that pulls you in emotionally. A father missing his son for so long that he's willing to cast aside any doubts about Alexia pretending to be him just to be able to be the father he has wanted to be for so long.
Alexia and Vincent even have a lot of struggles in common as the "body horror" elements of the film rear their heads as body dysmorphia struggles between the two. Vincent, whom takes and is obsessed with steroids and working out, and Alexia who continues to try and hide her increasingly prominent pregnancy (also disfiguring herself to look like Adrien). The parallels between the struggles allow them to connect and find something in each other that they've both been missing for so very long. With Vincent it is his son, and for Alexia it is a sense of belonging and acceptance that she has never had before.
The character arcs of these two people are so physically shocking to watch unfold but moreso emotionally explosive. Titane's finale is, albeit tough to watch at times but so rewarding in terms of Vincent and Alexia's struggles, emotions, and desires that it overwhelmed me. And I'm saying that in the most positive way that I can.
Lastly I'll just brush on Ducournau's command of lighting and coloring, which was absolutely brilliant. There's a couple of directors that come to mind when I think about phenomenal displays of lighting and color within a film. Guillermo Del Toro has famously used the three primary colors throughout his films to evoke certain emotions, Chloé Zhao and Alejandro Iñárritu are huge proponents of natural lighting resulting in beautiful projects (Nomadland and The Revenant). But now I'll have to always think of another director when thinking about command of the color palette, and that's Julia Ducournau after what I saw in Titane. This was as wildly vibrant display of colors throughout the whole film, never a dull moment, and each time it brought a different emotion into play or a different motif. It was truly remarkable to say the least.
There's plenty, and I mean plenty, in Titane that I didn't even mention let alone try to work in here. But the matter of the fact is, I probably didn't know what the hell was going on, and that's ok. I can't possibly expect to understand and be able to explain every nook and cranny of a film and neither should you. Sometimes, you just have to sit back, watch, and feel something you didn't expect to.
Froth
Going off of the fact that Titane hails from France I figured why not try and find myself a great French beer to pair it with? While some may think that's rather pedantic I found it to be quite rewarding.
I wasn't able to find anything purely French but what I did find was a world class Tripel hailing from Quebec Canada. This of course is quite French.
The La Fin Du Monde is a Belgian style tripel brewed out of Quebec by Unibroue, and its namesake means "the end of the world." This naming and brewing represents the 16th Century French explorers who, when they landed in Canada, thought they had actually reached the end of the world. Flat earthers am I right?
Much like Titane this beer was out of this world. Honestly this was one of the best beers I've had this year. I wouldn't call myself a huge fan of tripels, I've enjoyed the few I've had, but this one knocks all of the others out of the park. The balance of sweetness from the fruits combined with the spices and graininess is a remarkable feat in brewing. There's a tiny hint of bitterness out of the hops but its not overwhelming in the slightest, if anything it adds some more desired depth to the overall taste. Not to mention coming in at a cool 9% means every subsequent drink is bound to be better than the previous.
