TITANE (Julia Ducournau, 2021)

French writer/director Julia Ducournau reels you in with a pointed film that puts a fishhook in the male gaze. This is the perfect film for the adventurous viewer who laughed during the climax of The Substance, or anyone who misses cinema that makes you react on a visceral and more instinctual level. It’s also my favorite girl-power film and one of the most surgically precise dissections of bro culture in any language.

Satirical, surreal, and psychotic in equally heaping measure, French writer/director Julia Ducournau pulls off a masterful mid-film change-of-gears when our titular heroine morphs from an relentlessly homicidal force to a vulnerable loved one, and the whole thing is filled with fantastical imagery fantastically filmed. The story deep and loving underneath, like the pea under the blood-soaked mattresses of some murderous princess, or tender whispers under a wailing wall of moans and screams.

I’d suggest going into to blind and will just offer this quote from the director for your guidance: “The tools that I use are those of the body horror, comedy, thriller, and drama genres. These are the areas I feel comfortable working within, and they all go well together. Humor helps with catharsis when things are too dark, and provides distance: being able to laugh helps put things in perspective and is actually very healthy. That’s how I use humor, to let things breathe a little bit.”

I felt faint the first time I watched it and couldn’t stop laughing and cheering the second time. Your mileage may vary.

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/interview-julia-ducournau-titane-isabel-sandoval/