Body Horror, Technology, and You. Part III: The Wayfaring StrangerBy Joey Povinelli

No one knows who wrote folk classic, “Wayfaring Stranger.” It emerges from history fully formed as if the wanderer has always been lost, always singing of his journey home. Hundreds of years later and thousands of miles away, the song plays out of a car speaker before a crash… 

Titane opens with this accident. The child, who is in some ways also the perpetrator of the event, survives with a titanium plate in her skull. The next time she encounters a car, she kisses it. She greets her first gifter of pain as both mother and lover. This is Alexia.

When a child in a headbrace like this is one of your tamer images, you know the movie is craaaaaazzzzyyy….

Underneath Titante’s extreme shell, lies a film of deep vulnerability as Alexia’s physical transformation leads to spiritual change. It contains a genuinely beautiful sentiment where a union of the impossible is the ONLY right path for a better future. 

Alexia as an adult (played unforgettably by Agathe Rousselle), is introduced through a Broadway-worthy number: she performs an erotic dance at a car show, shaking it on a Cadillac with fire decals. She signs autographs after, as the camera lingers far behind. She is not attracted to attention, only the vehicular. Which leads to an unexpected pregnancy, at the hands (or should I say, wheels) of said car. 

Her element is mutilation. She only knows how to react to intimacy with violence. There’s a gleeful sequence about 30 minutes in where she murders a house full of people. A long, metal, phallic, hairpin is her weapon of choice. Alexia is a carlike vessel whose only purpose is motion. 

So why are we invested in someone who allows no windows in? On the film’s US release, I attended a Q and A with director, Julia Ducournau, at the now-defunct Landmark Pico: she said Alexia’s physical pain makes the audience care. We see Alexia endure a variety of punishments, both self-inflicted (breaking her nose on a sink to change her identity) and from the pregnancy which contorts her body (she lactates oil and the metal womb eventually tears open her skin). 

Don’t let the image fool you. This movie is definitely not for car bros. . .or is it?

Julia Ducournau is one of the most exciting filmmakers working in any genre. David Cronenberg seems to be a clear inspiration, but only because their films mutually combine the intellectual and grotesque; she’s not an homage-ist like some other writings suggest. From her debut feature, Raw, she arrived fully formed. Titane pushes extremity and transgressiveness to a more surreal and provocative edge. Raw is in conversation with Titane, as it features Garance Marillier as a different version of her character from Raw. Ducournau also reuses the character names, Alexia and Adrien, in both pictures. Ducournau thrives off the unexpected, and Titane pivots as Alexia becomes Adrien. 

The picture’s second half takes a U-turn: Alexia goes on the run for her multiple murders (which culminates in burning her dad alive in his home) and decides to hide by assuming the identity of a kidnapped boy. She takes over a new persona, “Adrien,” and is embraced by the boy's grieving father, Vincent (Vincent Lindon). He’s a strong, silent, firefighter who runs a tight ship yet his every waking action is colored by aching loss. 

Our renegade hero, previously defined through freedom and lack of ties, has to enter a world of conformity. At the fire station, everyone is in uniform, cooking and dining together. She enters her worst nightmare: home and attachment. The foil between Alexia and Vincent is clear: someone who would do anything to get their kid back meets someone who doesn’t want a father or anyone else. She tries to flee and assault but when she uses her failproof weapon against Vincent, he easily disarms. 

When Alexia sees Vincent in pain, passed out from the steroids he abuses in secret (his own body transformation), she begins to let the walls down. She becomes a ghostly presence at the station, rarely speaking but always dominating attention through glances and offhanded comments by the established team. She learns the firefighter culture- a killer uses CPR to give life to the beat of “The Macarena.” As she learns empathy for Vincent, her body breaks down until the changes can’t be hidden. Her surrogate father eventually catches on but accepts Alexia as Adrien because it is less painful than the non-resolution of the alternative. 

Switching from Alexia to Adrien is undoubtedly linked to gender identity. From the film’s start, she is portrayed in the traditionally masculine environment of the car show. In this world, women are subject to the same role as the vehicles: something to lust over. Alexia is looking at the cars from the man’s perspective. Becoming Adrien has Alexia partake in common practices of the queer experience like binding her chest and finding a family outside of the traditionally given (an entire essay could be written on this aspect of the film alone). Ducournau is interested in exploring the lines of gender through juxtaposition: the all-men world of the fire station is full of shirtless dance contests. They are bathed in a soft pink light as Future Islands blares from the score. 

Wait, I thought I was watching a body horror movie. . .now suddenly I’m tearing up and crying at human connection. . .

Ducournau uses dance as a signifier of turning points: Alexia’s opening number, Vincent dancing to The Zombies to disarm her the first time, and the above-mentioned firefighter scene. When Alexia dances as Adrien on top of a firetruck in her new form, revealing her true self by movement alone, the sound of none other than “Wayfaring Stranger” (this time covered by a female singer) comes out of the station’s speakers. This moment precedes Alexia giving birth. 

Alexia dies during the delivery and the final image is Vincent holding her child, whose skin is merged with bits of metal. An incredibly hopeful image as Alexia’s physical sacrifice and Vincent’s emotional suffering allows space for a new being- the next stage in evolution, not unlike the Star Child in 2001. Though she tries to terminate the pregnancy immediately, by the conclusion, the child is a blessing; a genuine hope for the future in new flesh. With Alexia’s conclusion look back on the opening song: “There is no sickness, no toil, no danger/In that bright land to which I go.” Even killers deserve a home.

Titane pushes the body horror genre into uncharted, contemporary waters- it’s as seamless a progression from “Wayfaring Stranger” into The Kills (played during Alexia’s dance at the car show), a band influenced by classic blues, yet reinvented with modern and abrasive panache. Titane goes beyond goo and gore, and exposes a wide-open, beating heart. 

Joey Povinelli is a writer known for his film and theatre work with jpeg Productions, including live talk show, The Martini Hour, and nationally screened horror short, “Interitus Adfectus.” He also writes about film and rock ‘n roll for a variety of publications. He is attracted to uncompromising emotions and gorgeous aesthetics. 

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