Body horror isn’t my favorite sub-genre, but Titane (French for titanium) had been recommended in several places. Body horror directed by women takes on a particular cast, especially since pregnancy is, I imagine, kind of scary. Certainly from a male perspective it can be, so I suspect such major body changes must involve some psychological adjustments for women as well. The story is strange. Alexia, after a childhood car accident, has a titanium plate in her skull. After being released from the hospital, she starts to really love cars. I mean, really love. She works as a car model and ends up making love to her showroom car one night. After that she becomes pregnant. Emotionally distant from most people, including her parents, she becomes a serial killer. She’s not a complete sociopath, however, because she realizes this is wrong.
Wanted by the authorities after killing everyone at a house party, she tries to change her identity by cutting her hair, breaking her nose, and wrapping her torso in body tape to pass herself off as a man. A firefighter chief whose son has been missing for a decade, believes Alexia is his son and he takes her in. She won’t speak, which he supposes is part of the trauma. He gives Alexia work among the other firefighters, who are generally sexist and not a little suspicious. Especially since the chief gives Alexia preferential treatment even though she doesn’t know what she’s doing. In one scene he tells the firefighters he is God to them and Alexia is his son. One of the firefighters quips later, that Jesus is white and gay. (Alexia is pretty and the broken nose only makes her appear androgynous.)
Her painful pregnancy, which involves motor oil, eventually forces her father to acknowledge that she’s not his son, but the lonely man still vows to care for her. When it’s time to give birth the baby is part titanium (as is Alexia’s distended belly). She dies in childbirth but her “father” accepts the hybrid baby as his own. This art-house Euro-horror won several awards. Exploring issues of both sexism and women’s body changes during pregnancy—particularly an unwanted one—the movie has something to say. And it’s something that a male writer-director simply couldn’t do. There are no jump-startles here, and the horror is a slow dread as the viewers’ sympathies tend to be with Alexia. The first murder we’re shown is when a fan attempts to make love to her (it doesn’t go as far as rape), despite her lack of interest. She has a motivation and it doesn’t seem evil. And, of course, there’s a good deal of fantasy at play. Like most Euro-horror, it leaves you thoughtful.
