“Titane” and The Transformative Power of Radical Acceptance
I don’t remember the last time I had to look away from a movie, or squinted my eyes nearly shut or literally did the peek through the slits of my fingers thing. I did all of those during the first 30 minutes of Titane.
This pushed the limits of what I could handle.
I had to watch Titane in two sittings, and in between those two sittings, I had a nightmarish thought — what if every movie I watched from now on became Titane? What if every movie looped back to that goddamn hair stick and some infernal, fresh new horror involving it awaited me?
Mirroring Agathe Rousselle’s visceral and unparalleled body transformation as the lead dancer turned runaway Alexia (or Adrien), my mind transformed.
The first half of Titane: AHHH! Nooooo! Please god stop! Don’t do that!
The second half of Titane: God, we are so screwed up, we are so different and it doesn’t matter. We need each other so bad. Radical acceptance is possible and will save us all.
Any movie that provokes such varied reactions and also had me remember (in a grotesquely inspiring way) that I can write and make anything, there are no fucking limits, is rare.
Julia Ducournau’s film is like eating a really good dish that gives you food poisoning. During the experience, you swear you’ll never eat it again. Then once that subsides you start wondering after it, craving another taste…
