Thinking about how it's still tempting, from time to time, to throw a toddler tantrum in Target, by which I mean just emotionally throwing myself on the floor and making people deal with me. Refusing to walk anymore, to go to work, to try to keep myself stable and happy, to feel good about things. I want to let things absolutely go to hell. To be a terrible flaming spectacle. Unfortunately and fortunately, the destructive passion doesn't last long enough to forever stave off its after effects: consequences, embarrassment, shame, the bewildering sensation of wonder what I had been so worked up about. Didn't I know it was all going to be fine?
It's tempting to still want a parent/child relationship. A person in my life to be my mother, like my mother was when I was a baby: totally in charge of me, responsible for me, consumed by me. Obviously, no one's actually going to do this for me, and it would be unhealthy (and ridiculous) if they did. My own mother loves me and I'm sure thinks about me some of the time, but I am far from her daily most pressing concern. She's got projects to do. She's moved on.
Oh boy.
Mlog Time!
TITANE
2021
Directed by: Julia Ducournau
Written by: Julia Ducournau
Watched: 10/7/21
Alexia as a child doesn’t get along with her father. She hums to the sound of the car while he drives and listens to music. He turns up the volume to drown her out. She gets louder and then starts kicking the back of his seat. When she unbuckles her seatbelt and starts climbing around, she causes a car crash. She has to get a titanium plate in her skull. As an adult, she dances at car shows and is a serial killer. She kills people who are attracted to her and meet up for sex or romance. She has a tattoo between her breasts that says “Love is a dog from hell.” She locks her parents in their room and sets the house on fire. On the run, she disguises her appearance – breaking her nose and cutting her hair, wearing an oversized sweatshirt so she looks like a boy. She’s picked up at the train station by a man who’s been missing his son since he was little. The man says he recognizes Alexia as his son. Oh! I forgot. Alexia has sex with a car and is now pregnant. Anyway, the man takes Alexia back with him to live at the fire station where he lives and works. We slowly realize that the man’s son died as a child. There’s no way he can continue to misidentify Alexia – with her pregnant belly barely concealed and the huge scar above her ear. But instead of killing him, or anybody, she stays. She takes on the role of his son. They both find the love they’re looking for. In the end, he delivers her car baby. She dies, having told him her name, but the child survives.
I liked this movie. Saw it in theaters as a matinee along with three other people (one of whom walked out thirty minutes in). I had high expectations because of how thoroughly Raw blew me away. This movie was extreme, but it didn’t have the same tightness and narrative coherency that Raw had. The serial killer thing is the part that threw me off. That plus how suddenly we shifted into this other thing – this her being mistaken for a boy. It was jarring and then we left the serial killing behind (which had also been jarring). Plus the car sex/baby thing, which I was on board with. But it’s a lot to take on board all together. Plus the car accident/plate in her head thing. It didn’t seem to really connect to the other stuff, other than head injuries being common in people who end up being serial killers, and maybe the connection that since she’s part metal, she can make a baby with a car? The actors who played Alexia and Vincent (the man who’s lost his son) were fantastic.
I’m glad to have watched it. Rooting hard for Ducournau in general.
Rating: ★★★
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