A few days ago the screening in Cannes of Titane raised ten minutes of applause and the cry of criticism at what would become instantly in the cult movie of 2021. It was the second film by French director Julia Ducournau, which after Crude has continued exploring sexual attraction for the forbidden and for all those monstrous drives that grow in his characters. Julia Ducornau wins the Palme d’Or at Cannes and becomes, at 37 years old, the second woman to achieve this recognition, after Jane Campion also took it away in 1993 for The piano.
Its argument, based on the fact that its protagonist, Agathe Rouselle has a sexual attraction to cars. A fetishism that will not be the strangest thing about the film at all, but it also includes the search for a father who is addicted to work and steroids. Titanium mixed a whole series of elements that explore gender fluidity.
Ducornau spoke in an interview for Indiewire, after winning the festival’s top prize for his influence on Cronenberg, body horror and the relevance of gender as a defining element of a person: “I don’t think our gender defines us. However, because that is not yet something that is socially understood, it becomes an issue. I tell everyone this: for me as a woman I don’t want my gender to define me at all. When people say that I am a director, I mean, it’s always a bit annoying, because I am a person. I am a director. I make movies because I am me, not because I am a woman. I am me”.
The influence of the director of Crash It is obvious both for those who have been able to see both films and for the director herself: “Obviously it is relevant to me because Cronenberg’s work has been fundamental to me, in the same way that Greek mythology was when I was a child ”. Then he talked about the term body horror and how he uses it in his characters. ”I use those tools because I express myself that way in the way I relate to the body. It is a completely honorable term ”, assured the director.
Julia Ducornau wins the Cannes Palme d’Or and we’ll have to wait a bit to see her in theaters in our country, as it opens on October 8.
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