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It's the most disturbing film of the year, but it hides a beautiful love story

After making history at the Cannes Film Festival and at the box office in the United States, the French hit "Titan" is coming up commercially in Israel.

Behind his definitions of "bizarre" and "creepy" lies a love story full of compassion and empathy, which director Julia Docorno presents in an impressive and beautiful way.

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• Titan - Movie

• Cannes Film Festival

Avner Shavit

Friday, 08 October 2021, 00:00

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Trailer for the movie "Titan" (Lev Cinema)

(Photo: Shai Librovsky)

About two months ago, the French film "Titan" won the Golden Palm. Spike Lee, who headed the jury, justified the win like this - "I've seen a lot of movies in my life. A movie where the protagonist gets pregnant with a McDilleck, I have never seen."

Indeed, a movie like "Titan" we have not seen before. Many cinematic works, from David Kronenberg's artistic "Crash" to the huge hit series "Fast and Furious", have already dealt with the special connection between people and cars - but they did not do so like the French film, which premiered here this weekend after premieres at Jerusalem and Haifa.

This plot detail, it is important to note, is not a spoiler, but takes place already in the first minutes of the plot.

We first meet the protagonist as a child, trying to pull at her parents' braids - but they do not give her a single drop of love.

Her attempts to drag some attitude on their part end in a serious car accident, which leaves her with an unusual attraction to metal.

And so, as an adult, we meet her having sex with pieces of metal of sorts, whether it’s piercings or whether it’s cars.

Her childhood left a mark on her in another way as well: she never received love and therefore also does not know how to give it, and violently attacks anyone in her space.

These murderous acts force her to flee the police, and in an attempt to hide her identity she undergoes a painful physical transformation to impersonate the lost son of a firefighter, who is so desperate to re-embrace, that he pretends to believe her pretense.

What will happen to them, and to the fate of her and her common son and the Cadillac car?

Everything we have written so far is just the first stage of this race track.

More on Walla!

"I was afraid to have sex with a car, but I coped": an exclusive interview with the movie star

To the full article

Broken box office records in America.

From "Titan" (Photo: Cannes Film Festival)

From the very first minutes of this race track, it is clear how good and safe the hands on the wheel are. The film was directed by Julia Docorno, which is her second film after "Na", one of the most impressive, effective, memorable and well-known horrors of the previous decade. Thanks to "Titan," she became only the second woman in history to direct a Golden Palm winner, and her work here also perpetuates her status as one of the most talented filmmakers operating today. The Frenchwoman has already directed episodes of Apple TV's Servant "" series, and it's easy to bet she's directing many more Hollywood projects in the coming years.

Dokorno, as one might have already been impressed by "Na", knows how to use the camera to evoke an emotional response. Less than five minutes pass, and the film presents us with such an intense brushstroke that I felt like getting up and cheering for the director each of the three times I watched "Titan." Even when the surprise effect passes, it is still impressive.

Dokorno has phenomenal control over all means of expression - the camera, editing, use of space, colors and soundtrack, ranging from hits like "Projector" and a song by the American indie band Future Islands. The transition from the world of cars to the world of firefighting allows her to use images of fire and the bodies of firefighters, and she does this in a mesmerizing way. The Cannes Film Festival's official competition was one of the best we've seen in the last decade, but the French director honestly earned the award, as well as the relative box office success of her film at the United States box office.

The director's artistic choices are not self-evident. So, for example, the casting. The role of firefighter is played by Vincent Landon, a veteran and senior actor in France, but he is faced with Agatha Russell, who is in her first film role, and previously stood in front of the camera as a model. In the presence of both of them there is something unpleasant, even defiant, and they deliberately make it difficult to watch "Titan", which is also such a challenging experience.

Like drinking castor oil.

From "Titan" (Photo: Carol Virgo)

Dokorno, as I read this week, enjoyed watching movies like "The Chainsaws from Texas" when she was six years old.

She was boundless as a child;

Boundless in her debut film, "Please";

And of course it is boundless here as well.

The definition of "hard to digest" is worn out, but "Titan" is genuinely a train of demons to be warned against.

As someone who usually eats such horrors for breakfast, I must testify that this is a demanding and unusual film.

"Titan" is hard to watch because of the extreme plays it has: sex with a car, brutal murders and a figure smashing its nose in the sink are just a few examples.

But even more so, it is difficult not because of what you see but because of what you feel, and the heavy feelings that arise throughout.

Titan has a scripted weakness: the scenes sometimes seem detached from each other, like short films rendered together by a rough hand for a quilt.

But in the end, they all crystallize and stand behind one clear and powerful idea.

Dokorno presents here an encounter between a character whose parents did not teach her to love, and learns for the first time what love is - and the alternative parent she found for herself, who lost the ability to love after losing his son, but now learns to do it again.

Love, the film says, is like light and also like skin, it peels off and then re-grows.

And love, the film adds in a tone typical of the period in which it was made, is love, no matter what.

"Titan" is a film about the understanding and inclusion of different identities - of the main character, who was born in a certain gender identity but changes it, and of her offspring, the fruit of the love of a woman and a car.

He too will get a warm hug.

Need a fire-up with the Cadillac episode in "Seinfeld".

From "Titan" (Photo: Carol Virgo)

What did they not say about "Titan"?

- "Bizarre", "nightmarish" and "shocking" are just some of the dubious crowns attached to it.

Opposite all these quotes is that of the director, who insisted time and time again that it was a love story.

Often, the seal does not indicate its pulp, but this time the creator is right.

"Titan" is a love story, full of beauty, compassion and empathy.

If the heroine's baby and the Cadillac car are now somewhere in the world, let him know that we love him as he is.

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