if that was me then, then who am I now?

Titane (2021) 
Directed by Julia Ducournau
Gore Capitalism Series #8

Despite my initial enthusiastic admiration for Julia Ducournau’s Titane (it was among my top ten favorite films of 2021), I hadn’t mustered the courage to revisit the film until now. It comes at a germane time; in a period of my life where I’m confronted with the very real fact that I have no idea who I am, what values are most important to me, and who I can confide in. Everytime I think I’ve hit a rock bottom, that bottom gives out to a whole other new pit of despair. And so, it’s oddly comforting to see such an emotionally-identifiable film and revisit a character that’s undergoing a similar need for transformation. And to bear witness and recognize that these attempts at transition can be beautiful, but rarely are they easy. 

The film centers on Alexia (Agathe Rousselle). As a child, she gets into a car accident with her father, where a titanium plate is sewed into her skull following a craniotomy. The scar is permanent and we see her again as an adult, working a car expo as an exotic dancer. She’s accosted by a fan as she leaves the venue and violently murders the man. She showers, cleansing herself of the murder, and subsequently approaches the high beams of a low-rider where she embarks on a wicked display of automobile eroticism. Satisfied, Alexia hangs out with a fellow dancer, going back to her home before violently murdering her and her numerous flatmates. The scene is vivid and violent but also marked by a modicum of humor; Alexia is positively exasperated by the impulse to murder (she utilizes a sharp ice pick and drives it into her victim’s ear canal, an act that seemingly mimics sex but also wounding her victims at the same site as her plate). It’s an act of impulse, one she does without planning or any identifiable regret. She disengages from her absent father, setting their home ablaze before going on the run. Perusing illustrations of missing people at a train terminal, Alexia decides to adopt a new identity as a boy named Adrien. She cuts her hair, shaves her eyebrows, breaks her nose, binds her breasts close to her chest, and dons baggy clothing where she turns herself in as the missing boy. Vincent (Vincent Lindon), the boy’s father, accepts this new Adrien as his son. What follows is a positively remarkable exercise in compassion; on love as an exercise of will. Or as bell hooks would suggest, “love (as) an act of will - namely both an intention and as action.”

Late in “Gore Capitalism", Sayak Valencia cites Simone de Beauvoir, in what’s eerily pertinent when analyzing the trans-qualities of Titane: “‘One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.’ Once again, this statement needs to be applied within the field of masculinity in order to decenter it and develop constructions of masculinity that are grounded in lived reality and their embodiment of individual masculinities that demonstrate how one is not born a man either, but rather becomes one through an always malleable process.” While Alexia’s journey suggests hiding from her problems, it’s really the lack of love in her life that causes her to spiral out of control. Within Vincent, we observe a pocket of benevolence that she frankly seems impossible to accept. And so she takes on a new guise, filling the hole in Vincent’s heart while maintaining a lie. But to Vincent, it’s all irrelevant. Alexia is Adrien. The Adrien that he needs in his life right now. And so he does everything he can to permit her to be that. And it’s only then Alexia can truly be herself. And I think when it comes to love, particularly when operating in the capitalist system that most of us inhabit, that’s the kind that is truly the most unconditional, powerful, and meaningful.