Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A woman with a metal plate in her head from a childhood car accident embarks on a bizarre journey, bringing her into contact with a firefighter who's reunited with his missing son after 10 years.
Titane is one of the most audacious and singular films of the 2020s — Julia Ducournau's follow-up to Raw earns maximum Novelty for its utterly unclassifiable blend of body horror, identity deconstruction, and raw emotional pathos. The cinematography is visceral and hypnotic, with Ruben Östlund-level command of space and flesh. Agathe Rousselle's wordless, feral lead performance and Vincent Lindon's devastating turn as the grief-hollowed firefighter are both exceptional. The plot is deliberately transgressive and elliptical, functioning more as provocation than narrative — rewarding viewers who surrender to its logic, but genuinely alienating others (scoring a solid 3 rather than exceptional). The ending, however, is the film's weakest element: the birth/transformation climax leans into ambiguity to the point of incoherence, and its emotional payoff doesn't fully cohere with the themes it's built — a genuine structural weakness that keeps the film from total triumph.