A New Humanity: Interview with Titane’s writer-director Julia Ducournau
It’s near impossible to talk about Titane, Julia Ducournau’s sophomore feature, without placing some sort of expectation on it. It’s been called a body horror, a love story, a horror with film some car-fucking thrown in. It’s all of that, and more. Titane is a film of extremes, visual and visceral ones. Ducournau draws from Greek mythology, Biblical imagery and her own anger at the expectations placed on women. We spoke to her about all of this – and her optimistic take on the film’s ending.
Be warned, this interview is spoilerific.
AB: I really wanted to start on the subject of horror with Alexia because we meet her as this violent and scary serial killer. And I wanted to ask her kind of what elements of her did you want to emphasize? And how did you approach making her terrifying?
JD: Well, that's the thing. I think the reason why she's so terrifying, I guess, is that I try not to justify or give a cause for her violence. I think that most of the time, when you have a violent or psychopathic, or, or an erratic female character in films, they always tend to link this to a cause that is somehow like revenge or linked to childhoods or traumas, and things like this. I don't have anything against that in terms of writing, but as far as I'm concerned, I just tried to reverse the idea that a woman is a designated victim, and to show that women feel violence too and they can express violence too. Violence is something that belongs to humanity, but is not something that is gendered. There was this poll done in the Paris subway system, I think, in 2015 or something like that. They did a poll with female users of the subway, like regular users, and they asked these women one question: have you ever been assaulted, heckled, or insulted because of your gender on the subway in Paris? Have you been threatened? They asked this of women, very different ages, from 18 to, I don't know, 70. And the percentage of people who answered YES to this poll was 100%. It was 100%. When I saw that in the paper, I was shocked. I wasn't surprised, but I was shocked that it was 100%. Like, it could have been 98%, you know, but it was 100%. I remember that when I took the subway, the next day or that day, I looked around me and they saw all these women sitting, standing, talking, reading, whatever. I realised that they have all have been the victim of male violence in the subway at least once in their lives, all of them, all of them. I got so angry at that. I got so angry. What's crazy is that a person, a man, who's gonna assault a woman in the subway - which has obviously happened to me too, because I use the subway very much - it will never come to his mind that she might retaliate in a very violent way that could be actually detrimental to his health, you know? I think it's crazy because when you compare us, for example, if we are in a subway corridor alone and a man comes to cross our path... Even if that man is a saint, we will already have our keys in our hands and we will be already looking for an exit.
AB: We’ve already written the violent situation…
JD: You can see how alienating it is. If we don't share the public space in the same way then we are so far because we are really just talking about getting out of your house. I want a character who just retaliates. Again, I'm not blind to the fact that the reason why we do not retaliate is because we're petrified and because we think that we don't stand the chance because society makes us think that we don't stand a chance. And I put myself in this like 100% because we believe we don't stand a chance - so why retaliate? I think that this anger and this frustration, I put in Alexia. She just can. I just wanted to have a character who just can, and that's it.
AB: It's so surprising when she first retaliates. Especially, because it's a sort of parasocial relationship that she has with that guy, who is a fan. He expects something, he feels entitled to something of her, not just her attention, but her body, her affection. Taking into account just how intense and long the promotion for your previous film was, what did you glean about this relationship between an audience and then a performer that you wanted to put into Alexia, especially in the first part of the film when we see her dance and perform for a mostly male audience?
JD: I wanted to work on our preconceived ideas. Actually, that's something that I really like in other director's work. For example, in The Hunt by Vinterberg - he does this so well, he plays with you, but he plays with himself. I think I wanted to kind of somehow tickle this easiness that there is to judge someone in yourself. I mean both men and women, I mean the whole audience. I wanted to make you able to get into her shoes, to somehow reverse your preconceived ideas, you know, to change your mind, basically, which is already a lot isn't it?
AB: It's a lot to ask of any person. And it's a lot to ask of one film. Every time I've spoken to you we've kind of danced around the idea of dance in the film. It’s clearly so important and so choreographed. Personally, I've always been obsessed with this interplay of dance and bodies and horror. Can you talk a little bit about the significance of dance and choreography in Titane?
JD: There's two things. The first thing is that I'm crazy about dancing. Since I was a kid, I did a lot of dancing, ballet and other stuff. I go to the opera a lot. That's something that for me has always been the epitome of how body empathy is possible. How you can feel for someone just through your body and through their body. That is something so immediate, so instant, that I wanted to reproduce it in my film, knowing that I would not have a very chatty film. Dancing came for me very naturally for my characters to dialogue between them, but also, and maybe more importantly, for my character to dialogue with you as the audience. All these dance things are never just dance for the sake of dancing. They always, somehow, trigger the next step in the narrative. We don't necessarily need words for that, we have dancing. And it's not a musical, right? It's not like people start dancing, all of a sudden, it's really always in a certain context where dancing would be appropriate. It always comes as one step further in the story.
For example, obviously, the car dancing is all about reversing your preconceived ideas about my character. But also, for example, when they're dancing in the pink scene (what I call the pink scene is the one with the firefighters), it's the first moment where you actually have a real feeling of them looking at themselves for who they really are, beyond the lies that they tell each other. When they're dancing together, and they look at each other and they smile. It's really about two people, no matter who they are, who are connecting perfectly in joy. Only dance could bring that to me. It's about shedding the lies that they tell each other with this whole fantasy lost son thing. The same obviously, at the end, when they're in the mosh pit, and then she's on the fire truck, with her somehow becoming complete for the first time, becoming the sum of all her experiences, both as Alexia and Adrien. That puts everyone in awe because it's like sheer freedom. Again, it was a way to put you in the shoes of characters that if you tried to explain them with words, you wouldn't understand. It would be too messy, too chaotic. But here, all of a sudden, it's incredibly clear.
AB: I wanted to ask you about the scene where Alexia kills everyone in Justine’s house. It's so choreographed, I think of it as another dance sequence. How did you approach the choreography of Alexis violence?
JD: Well, the first thing you have to know is that this scene was originally a oner. It was shot as a oner. We did everything in one shot, which represented a huge technical challenge, because it's between two floors of the house, plus all the stunts and prosthetics. The prosthetics were added during the shot. When the camera was up, you had my whole team effect putting blood and prosthetics on the guy's face. It was incredible to shoot, we had a blast. It was very hard, especially for my DP who was sweating going up and down the stairs with his camera. But it was really exhilarating. However, unfortunately, the pace of the one was not fast enough to match the song that I really wanted. All the other songs that I used were there since the script, and I needed that specific song. So we had to cut it, unfortunately. But fortunately, we cut it in a way that kind of feels like this choreography that you're talking about, which really was a choreography with the whole team. I think you can still feel it, that's why it feels like a dance, by the way. This scene for me is a big comedy scene.
AB: It is, for sure. I felt very troubled as well by the fact that it was so funny.
You know why it's funny? Because it's the first time of the film that you can actually relate to her. You can relate to her because she's so tired and overwhelmed, for the first time.
She used to control everything, and now she doesn't control anything anymore. It's very, I think, relieving to see her as a completely overwhelmed human being. Like, Oh, what the fuck am I doing here? To laugh at her a little bit because, honestly.
AB: The Alexia we meet at the beginning is extremely different from the Alexia that we see at the end of the film. You mentioned this merging of identities: Alexia the serial killer, Alexia the half metal person, Alexia the reluctant mother. It all feels very biblical, very mythological and very epic. Can you talk a little bit about these big influences?
JD: In the end for me, she's both Mary and Jesus. She embodies both of them. Throughout the film, she has been both of them. I asked the prop master to create this kind of metallic brace in order for it to look like the crown of thorns. That's why I asked the girl who plays the young Alexia to hand hold her hands like she's bearing the stigmata and there is this white light on her that gives the impression of a halo. All this was obviously extremely, extremely intentional. After that, you have the idea of Immaculate Conception, even though we know that it comes from the car but the way her belly bursts out of her jeans with no warning or whatever was my way to give the idea of an Immaculate Conception. And then when she's with Vincent, he says "he's my son, blah, blah, blah, I'm God and he's my son". So Alexia is Jesus. She's portrayed as Jesus right away when she gets to the fire station. After that we tried to recreate Michelangelo's Pieta. So, during the whole film I made her go from Jesus to Mary to Jesus to Mary again. And at the end for me, she's both.
AB: Finally, I wanted to ask you about the choice of ending the film on the birth scene. did wonder for a minute there, you know, is she gonna show us the baby, the kind of this half metal half human, that new human.
JD: Well, for me, it's a very optimistic ending. The whole film is about trying to find the Light Through the Darkness. And it rises little by little through the film, the more we get too intimate with our character. And, and this is really for me, like that's why I put back on Sebastian Bach at the end. I'm not saying it in a religious way at all, but this represents the sacred in humanity at the end. The fact that this baby's born with this endoskeleton made of titanium is incredibly optimistic because it means that this baby is stronger than his mom, because she only had the plate. By the way, it's She. I don't know why I say 'he'. The baby is a She. It's not seen in the film, but it's a She to me. She has a spine made of titanium. At the same time, what I like is that, at the beginning, the titanium plate is seen as an abnormality, it seemed like a dead thing. And at the end the metal is alive, the spine is moving, the baby is alive, it's crying. There is this idea that it's a new humanity that is more monstrous, but it's stronger and it's born in love. Vincent is ready to accept the baby. No matter what. I think that baby's really human.
Anna Bogutskaya is the co-founder of The Final Girls, and host of their weekly podcast.
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