Titane (2021)
Seems like I’m in the minority here looking at how well regarded this movie is here, but I did not connect with this at all. Mostly an incomprehensible mess to be honest - with some elements that could have been interesting if it was a different movie.
It is really two different movies, a shocking body horror murder spree and a more introspective story about identity and love. The various body horror scenes of murder and self inflicting torture was certainly successful in making me queasy, and I do appreciate movies that can do that but most of it felt rather pointless. And I never captured what the hell that whole car pregnancy was about. The second act did explore some interesting themes on gender identity, dealing with loss and unconditional love. In fact, I found the father to be the most fascinating character while Alexia wasn’t that interesting even though she is the protagonist. She has no clear motivation for all her killings, her childhood trauma wasn’t developed enough to help matters and other than trying to not get caught - she has no real agency. She is like a blank slate that things just happen to.
I must say that it is one hell of an unique movie. The combination and ultimate breakdown of several genres is well done, and I can hint how it must be doing something clever with exploration of transgenderism - though it mostly flew over my head.
Rating: 2.5